


leviticus

by composer



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Dystopia, F/F, F/M, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, World War III
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-02-06 14:43:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 17
Words: 91,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1861725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/composer/pseuds/composer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the catastrophic events of World War III, New York City has been reduced to a concrete jungle where people make their own rules and murder is as commonplace as breathing. Only the military can keep order in the ruins, but in the face of building-sized mutants, Russian spies, and government secrets, their job is much harder than they ever realized.</p><p>Politics have no place in the aftermath of the apocalypse.</p><p>(Alternatively titled, Mikasa Ackerman makes Bad Choices whenever Annie Leonhardt is Involved)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. deliver us from evil

**Author's Note:**

> to clarify: the 3DMG the characters wear in this fic is exactly the same as the canon gear; they just happen to also carry rifles.

"I hate patrolling," Eren mutters, stepping over a hunk of misplaced concrete. 

Mikasa sweeps the beam of the flashlight mounted on her rifle between disfigured street signs. "You don't have to like it. You just have to do it." 

"I'm doing it, aren't I?" he snaps back, throwing her an irritated look over his shoulder. His bright eyes contrast starkly with his black uniform.

"Hardly," she murmurs, ignoring his gaze.

They fall quiet. This area of the city is deathly silent; their voices bounce, amplified, between the crumbling buildings, out of place and incriminating. 

Armin is bringing up the rear, his blond hair pulled back in a rubber band. He whistles under his breath---a signal to stop. Mikasa freezes in place. Eren, in the lead, stops as well, turning his head just enough to look back at his partners. 

"What's wrong?"

"Sh," Armin cautions. "I heard something." 

He motions for them to get out of the middle of the road; abandoned though it may be, it's open, and not a strategically sound place to be in case of an attack. They crouch behind the procession of old cars lining the sidewalk, pressing close to the rusted husks and peering over trunks and hoods. After a moment, Mikasa hears it too: the slow, steady thump of very heavy footsteps. 

"Titans?" Eren whispers, suddenly excited. 

"Could be," Armin answers, checking his ammunition.

_"Yes!"_

Mikasa lashes out with one leg, landing a solid kick on Eren's thigh. "Keep your voice down. We're only going to engage if it spots us." 

"Ow! Shit, Mikasa, that hurt!" He cringes away, rubbing his leg with his free hand. 

"Remember the mission," she says simply, not looking at him.

"Yeah, yeah, I remember the stupid mission. Patrol this wastoid sector and hope to find someone who hasn't turned into a giant freak because they took a dive in a Russian nuke pool or something." He makes his voice mockingly cheerful. "But, if we happen to come across a Titan, we shouldn't kill it! Because that used to be a _person_ and what if someone comes across a cure one of these days? As if." 

Armin frowns in his direction. "We're close, you know. Dr. Zoë has been in the lab nonstop the last few weeks, and she's got a ton of serums cooking that might end all of this." 

"Not gonna happen," Eren scoffs, throwing another look at the street. "It's been two years, Armin, don't you think things should have changed by now?"

"Things have changed---"

"Who are you trying to kid? Our families are still _dead_ , Titans are still walking around, we're still afraid that Russian spies are going to blow up the parts of New York that they missed the last time---"

"Shut up. Both of you." 

They know not to push it when it's Mikasa giving the order, because she's not beyond beating them both senseless if need be, so they drop the conversation and follow her gaze. She's kneeling beside an old cab, eyes glued to the street over the expanse of its hood. The boys freeze---the footsteps are a lot closer now. A street over, maybe just around the corner. The Titan lopes into view a moment later, a good seven meters tall, its slightly bulging head lolling side to side as it goes. 

"Let's kill it," Eren growls, leaning forward.

"No." Mikasa catches him by the shoulder and jerks him away from the car he's crouched behind, locking her arm around his neck to keep him still. "Not unless we have to. I'm not going to let you risk our lives to feed your stupid revenge fetish."

He starts protesting, so she claps her other hand over his mouth, waiting. The Titan is closer now, just a few yards up the road; it could definitely hear any conversations between them at this distance. She holds her breath as it comes closer. There's no indication that it knows that they're there, but Titans are crafty sometimes. She's not taking any chances.

Luckily, the creatures keeps going, stomping aimlessly down the road. It turns the corner at the intersection and lumbers out of sight. After several minutes of Eren glaring up at her, the sound of its footsteps fade entirely, and she releases him from the choke hold.

"I can't believe you, Mikasa! You're always treating me like a little kid, jeez---"

"I'll stop treating you like one when you stop acting like one," she replies, getting to her feet. She brushes dirt from her fatigues. "Let's get a move on. We need to cover more ground and still have time to get back before sundown." 

She takes point now, Armin just a few paces behind, Eren trailing with a scowl. The flashlight on her rifle cuts through the gray stupor of the day; she guesses that it's about three-thirty, but the sun is hidden behind perpetual nuclear-induced clouds, and the tall skeletons of buildings that line the road to either side throw shade over the cracked asphalt. She scans the remains of the buildings---a lot of twisted steel and broken glass, so they must be in what used to be the business district. Maybe Wall Street, even.

"I don't like this place," Armin says from behind her. "The buildings don't look secure. If we need to make an escape with the 3DMG, there's no telling if they're stable enough to support us." 

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," she says, sliding one hand absently into the strap that cuts across her abs. Her 3DMG is a healthy weight nowadays; an extension of herself, a fail-safe part of her body. 

Eren grunts loudly. "We could go for a spin around here, but that would be a waste of precious gas, wouldn't it? You guys suck." 

"We're practical," Armin corrects him. Eren grunts again in reply.

They approach what used to be a busy intersection; the number of abandoned cars is higher here than anywhere else, countless rust buckets pushed to the sides to leave a passable strip of road. Mikasa switches off her flashlight. The air is clearer here, and the light would do more harm than good by attracting Titans. 

Eren starts up complaining again. "Can we go back already? There's no one here. Just Titans and corpses---"

"Eren."

"I mean, I feel bad for the people who died or changed or whatever, but we're too late---"

_"Eren."_

"What? Why are we stopping?"

Mikasa stands stock still in the center of the intersection, one hand signalling for the others to hold their positions. "Eren. Armin. I want you to turn your heads to the left. Don't move anything else." 

They do. And they see what she saw, too late.

The road that branches off to the left is infested. She barely has to turn her head to see it---the Titans are everywhere, sniffing at the vehicles scattered around them, shuffling from building to building. She counts nine. Could be ten, but she's not sure; visibility at a distance is shit. Bottom line is, they only have one option.

"Listen to me," she breathes. She exudes the calm that she needs her team to have; she models the kind of control that they need to survive. "We're not fighting them. Swing your rifles around." 

In unison, the three slide their rifles so that they're hanging behind their backs, leaving their hands free to operate their 3DMG. Their movements are as conservative as possible---the Titans haven't noticed them yet, but it's inevitable, and sudden movements will only speed along the process. 

"Pick up your operating devices." 

They unsheathe their operating devices from the holsters under their arms. 

"Just in case---attach blades." 

With minute care, they affix the blades to the ends of the hand grips, until all three are standing with a sword in each hand. Mikasa watches as the first Titan begins to eye them curiously.

"It's starting to pick up our scent. We're going to split up now---I'm going straight. Armin, head right, Eren, go back. _Don't_ argue, Eren, just go. Now. We meet back at HQ. If someone's not back by sundown---they're dead."

"Mikasa---"

 _"Move!"_ She doesn't wait for them to reply to the command---the Titans have fully registered the human scent in the air and have begun their charge.

Mikasa aims for a sturdy-looking stone-faced building and squeezes the triggers of her gear; the hooks shoot out at lightning speed, the gas hissing from the device a hair later, and then she's off, propelled faster than most people would think possible. She kicks off the building, hovers in mid-air for a half second before gravity catches up, and then fires the hooks at another target, swinging effortlessly down the dusty road as efficiently as possible.

She doesn't look back to see if Eren and Armin are Titan chow; she can hear the monsters behind her, struggling to catch up, and a misstep now could kill her. She focuses solely on moving---aiming, shooting, firing, and torpedoing through the stale air without thinking about the Titans behind her or her idiot brother Eren or poor Armin, who injured his shoulder a few weeks ago and shouldn't even be operating 3DMG. 

Her idea to split up doesn't seem sound in hindsight. She's deeper in Titan territory than she'd like---the area around her is immensely dilapidated, and she's afraid that a hook might sink into seemingly secure stone or metal only for it to crumble around her anchor, ruining the rhythm of her escape and possibly endangering her life. But she doesn't have time to consider alternatives. 

Blood pounds in her ears. As she swings around a corner, she chances a look back; to her dismay, three Titans are keeping up with her breakneck speed. Probably abnormals. The blades are feather-light in her hands---she could kill them. She knows she can. She's done it before, taken on seemingly impossible odds and come out on top. There's a reason she came out first in her class in the academy. 

But she doesn't engage, because she's learned that the soldiers who take risks are the first ones to go, and she's not ready to go just yet. 

She hurtles down a narrow side street, hoping that the small space will deter the Titans, but they push on, excited by the prospect of a meal. Eren must be right---there's really no one here, no one to sate the Titans' hunger. Besides her. And her team. Knots of worry for the boys twist in her stomach as she catapults herself straight upward, far out of the Titans' reach, and then lands lithely on the roof of an apartment block, kneeling on the cool concrete to catch her breath. 

The Titans paw at the side of the building. She looks over the lip of the roof and down into the alley below, watching them stretch their bloated fingers towards her. It's only a matter of time before they figure out a way up; her break is going to have to be short-lived.

She walks to the other end of the roof, leaning one hand on an air duct and looking out at the expanse of city before her. Mostly apartment buildings, three, four stories at most. Not ideal for eluding Titans. She's just beginning to work out her escape plan when something catches her eye in the window of a distant building---something bright and flickering and warm. Fire.

Titans don't need fire. They don't need food, water, rest. But humans do.

 _Remember the mission._

Without a second thought, she leaps from the roof, firing her anchors a moment later in the direction of the flame.

* * *

Whoever started the fire was smart enough to climb to the highest floor of the building, but dumb enough to pitch the fire in a room with the windows blown out. Titans writhe around the edges of the apartment block, desperately trying to reach the mysterious figure whose position is so obviously announced to the world.

Mikasa crouches on the building adjacent to the one in question, debating how best to get inside without getting snatched out of the air by a Titan. She can only see one safe way---shooting straight through the open window, though whatever's on the other side may prove to be more dangerous than the Titans. She knows better than anyone that humans are the real monsters in this world. 

She perches on the very edge of the roof, aims the operating devices with utmost care. Fires. The anchors dig into the brick to either side of the open window, and she jumps. The gas hisses from the fan simultaneously; she pulls the hooks free of the wall as she hurtles towards it, pulling in her arms and legs and slotting through the window seamlessly. 

She flips her position in a split second, putting her legs first now, and digs her heels into the scarred wooden floorboards to stop herself. The fire rears inches from her. Standing carefully, she takes it in---a bonfire of sorts, constructed in the middle of the room with bits of furniture, all contained in a large metal bowl of sorts. The flames lick eagerly, threatening to catch the rest of the room. It's highly dangerous, and she's eager to get out of here as soon as possible. 

"Is someone here? I'm Specialist Ackerman, with the U.S. Army. I can take you back---"

She hears it, then, labored breathing from the far end of the room. An injury. She skirts around the crude fire pit and weaves between more broken furniture. A small figure is slumped against the wall. Sharp blue eyes challenge her to come closer under blood-stained blonde hair; a petite hand is pressed to the girl's abdomen, red with blood. Every breath seems to hurt the girl. Mikasa takes another step closer.

"Stay away from me," the girl says flatly, in a distinctive, deadly accent.

Mikasa obeys. Realization dawns on her---the heavy Russian lilt to her words, the gray uniform. This is no damsel in distress. This is a Russian spy.

She waits, breath bated, expecting the spy to whip out a gun and shoot her, but the blonde's eyes close suddenly and she sucks in a breath through her teeth. Her pain is obvious on her features. Despite herself, Mikasa feels the need to help tug at her conscience. 

"I can help you," she says, but those eyes flash open again, angry. 

"Leave me to die," she groans, her hand beginning to shake where it's glued to her stomach. 

Before Mikasa can protest, the soldier's eyes flutter closed and her head slumps sideways. Mikasa kneels before her and checks for a pulse. It's faint, but definitely present; she can still be saved. She realizes that this is incredibly stupid---no soldier in her right mind would help a Russian spy live---but it feels inexplicably right. 

She drags the soldier to a low sofa and lays her down on the ripped cushions. Pulling the uniform shirt up enough to see the girl's wound, she sucks in a breath---deep, ugly gashes rake the Russian's front, seeping blood and threatening infection. Mikasa reaches for a discarded blanket, balls it up, and presses it to the lacerations, stopping the heavy blood flow as best she can. 

Armin is a better medic than she; he has an affinity for helping people, an ease with other human beings that she can't replicate. He would know what to do, so she tries to emulate his thinking. She can hear his voice in her head, advising her to find a more permanent solution to stop the bleeding. She needs bandages. 

Because Armin is the unofficial medic of their squad, he carries the small pouch of medical supplies at all times. She regrets splitting up even more now. Wary of the Russian bleeding out before she gets back, Mikasa hurries out of the room, heading into what looks like a kitchen, and rummages through the cabinets. She finds a first aid kit and tears it open, pleased to see a roll of thick gauze and a bottle of alcohol. 

She cleans the spy's wounds, glad that the girl is already unconscious, then wraps her stomach tightly in gauze. There's no guarantee that this will be enough to save her life, but Mikasa can only do so much in the middle of a Titan-infested neighborhood. Now there's the business of getting out alive. 

3DMG wasn't designed for more than two people to use at a time. It's tailored specifically to a single operator---often times, in combat, this translates to _every man for himself_. Mikasa's seen it a dozen times before, soldiers stranded in enemy territory because rescuing simply isn't an option. She won't be deterred. 

The Titans are still clawing at all four exterior walls, their oddly large eyes pinned to hers when she chances a look down at the street level. Going on foot definitely isn't an option. Her 3DMG can certainly carry her away from this mess, but the spy would have to be left behind. Shouldn't that be enough for her? She kicks herself for wanting to save the Russian so badly, especially when any other U.S. Army affiliate would leave the girl to die without a second thought. 

Something nags her, an alternative course of action that's so insane, she barely acknowledges it. 

_Kill all the Titans._

That sounds like something Eren would think, she reminds herself. Kill them all with reckless abandon. There are at least four Titans on each side of the building---sixteen Titans in all, odds that would make even the most seasoned soldiers shy away. Whole squadrons could be wiped out by fewer of the beasts. And yet, she can't think of any other way.

The spy stirs, blinking at her from the sofa. "What the hell . . . are you doing?" 

"I'm getting us out of here," Mikasa says. She unsheathes her blades, curls her fingers around the operating devices, and dives through the window. 

Speed, she has learned, is the best way to defeat Titans. Speed and ferocity. Never yield, never give an inch, never stay in one spot for more than a heartbeat. She is in no short supply of these skills; within half a minute four Titans are dead. 

She hooks an anchor into the brick and swings around the corner, retracting the cable and spinning untethered as soon as she catches sight of the Titans. The first two she cuts down with this momentum alone; the others she dispatches with quick, business-like efficiency. 

The Titans from the other sides of the building are already coming around the corner to meet her, a small horde of them, and she throws herself into the fray without flinching. Two of the TItans attempt to catch her at the same time; she hits the gas, literally, and zips up and away, watching with smug satisfaction as the beasts hit each other. Disoriented, they make easy targets. 

The others are so desperate to get their teeth in her that she barely has to strategize---they're too stupid to work together, too stupid to realize how she picks them off one by one, until only one Titan's standing, lunging for her all slack-jawed and aimless. She kicks off the side of the building, spins, and sinks her blades in and out in the same moment, ending the final Titan. 

The girl is struggling to keep her head up when Mikasa eases back through the window, her body rocking with tremors from the effort. "What . . . did you do?" 

"I bought us time." Mikasa sheathes her bloodied blades and scoops the Russian up in her arms, despite adamant protests from the girl. 

It's slow-going, but she manages to carry the spy down four flights of stairs, through a caved-in lobby, and out onto the street level. The spy's narrowed eyes take in the disintegrating Titan carcasses scattered around them, then fall on Mikasa's face. "You did this?" 

She doesn't answer, which is enough confirmation for the Russian.

* * *

Mikasa's training has made her an expert at walking the streets undetected by Titans; however, her training never included a short Russian spy who falls unconscious within minutes of the expedition. Weariness is just beginning to touch the edges of Mikasa's muscles, but she's no stranger to exhaustion. Her time in the academy turned her into a well-oiled machine in the present. 

She listens as she walks, ears straining to hear even a hint of Titan presence. If a Titan does happen to pass by, she does what her training commands---she hides, sometimes underneath cars, sometimes in tiny, littered alleys. The Russian she carries certainly isn't making the job any easier, but she manages. 

Her real problem, she realizes, is making it back before sundown---because New York after dark presents an entirely different set of enemies. Titans are largely inactive at night; its humans who like to run the streets when the stars come out, and they're as vicious as the giants who rule by day. 

The remaining citizens of New York and the resident military officers have a strained relationship; it dates back to the first days following the end of the war, the days when nuclear radiation was still thrumming in the sewers and millions were dead or missing or worse. People were out of control---the military handled it. It was usually violent, unstable, and eventually, the U.S. Army became public enemy number one. 

That original tension remains to this day, and Mikasa's had to put down rebellious civilians on more than a few occasions since her enlistment. That's why the soldiers carry rifles---useless against the Titans, vital in the fight against other humans. 

She's wary as the waning daylight begins to fade completely. Judging by the street signs she's just passed, she has about an hour more on foot before she makes it back to base, and she can't say that she really _wants_ to make it back there---her commanding officers will be astounded by her stupidity. Bringing a wounded Russian back, delivering an enemy into the base. Its ludicrous. 

But, no matter how much she reminds herself of how idiotic this is, she can't shake the need to rescue this girl. She guesses it has to do with the death of her parents; they were killed by raiders, nameless people who broke into their home after the first Russian attacks and stole everything of value. What happened after her parents' murder . . . she generally blocks the rest out.

_"This is Red Arrow 2 on military channel 107.0, requesting status report on Red Arrow 1. Red Arrow 1, do you read me?"_

She freezes as the radio on her belt crackles to life. Shit. Red Arrow 2---that's Armin, asking for her. He must be back already, wondering where she is. She remembers her earlier warning to her squadron---anyone who doesn't make it back by sundown is dead.

After a moment's debating, she sinks into a dank alley, sets the Russian down on the ground, and crouches with the radio in hand. "I read you, Red Arrow 2."

 _"Oh, thank God,"_ Armin breathes into the device, his voice breaking with relief. _"Where are you? What happened? Eren and I are already back, we've been waiting for hours---"_

"I ran into some trouble, but I'm fine now," she says shortly, cutting him off. "Are you alone?"

_"What?"_

"Are. You. Alone." 

He pauses. _"I am."_

"I need you to listen to me, and don't say anything to anyone," she says, pitching her voice to make it exactly clear how serious she is. "I found someone. Non-infected."

_"Really? Are they with you?"_

Mikasa glances at the unconscious spy before replying. "She's with me. But she's---she's not---" She has no idea how to own up to how ridiculous this, so she takes the plunge. "She's a Russian, Armin. A Russian soldier."

Dead silence on the other end. Then, _"Mikasa . . . why?"_

"She's severely wounded. She would have died if I hadn't gotten there." 

_"Why didn't you let her?"_

That's a very good question.

* * *

The sun's been down for two hours. Mikasa sits with her back to an AC unit, watching the spy's chest rise and fall unevenly. The rooftop she's painstakingly claimed is silent. Above her, the sky is close, and she can almost pretend she sees stars. 

The fire escape that chokes up the side of the building clangs with approaching footsteps. She rolls forward onto one knee, pointing her assault rifle at the spot where the iron stairs meet the roof. Blond hair emerges over the lip of the building, followed by Armin's worried blue eyes. He looks left and right nervously as he approaches. 

"You made it." Mikasa stands, letting her rifle hang on one shoulder. "Look---can you help her?"

She directs his attention to the blonde spy, lying unconscious on the whitish concrete of the roof. Armin kneels beside her and inspects the bandages, peeling some away to get a better look at the wound. His face is grave. 

"You did a good job cleaning and bandaging, but the blood loss is a problem. We're obviously in no position to give a blood transfusion---her body will have to regenerate blood on its own. Which wouldn't be a problem for a healthy person, but with injuries this serious, her body's incredibly weak. She needs to rest in a stable place, and be given heavy antibiotics . . . Mikasa. Why are you doing this?" 

She'd been hoping that he wouldn't bring up her reasons for rescuing the spy. "It just feels right, Armin. I need to do this." 

His eyes weigh hers. "Do you understand how dangerous this is? You could be put on trial, or even discharged." 

"I know the risk," she snaps. "I wouldn't have called you here if I didn't." 

"I hope you know what you're doing," he sighs, sliding his arms under the Russian's limp body and picking her up bridal style. "I'll try to support you when they start asking questions, but there's only so much I can do. You know that." 

"I know." She readies her rifle again, taking point. "Let's just get home." 

She leads, rifle locked and loaded in case of ambush, but the going back to HQ is relatively quiet. Armin doesn't speak, and neither does she. There's nothing to say about the peculiar situation. She focuses her thoughts on wondering how she'll get this spy behind friendly lines without getting shot.

Armin must be reading her mind. "How do you plan on getting her inside?"

"I'm working on it." 

"She's dressed in a Russian uniform. That's a little incriminating, don't you think?"

_"I'm working on it."_

"I heard you the first time," he says innocently. "But, you know, if it was me, I'd find her different clothes. That way, no one back at base camp will be able to tell right off the bat that she's one of them---"

"Armin." She stops, pivots to face him. "You're a genius."

* * *

She raids four different apartments before she finds clothes that fit the spy---nondescript black pants and a white hooded sweatshirt. Unassuming enough to get them into the base easy enough. All she needs to do is make sure no one hears the Russian speak---the accent is a death sentence in and of itself. 

As they get closer to the fence that surrounds the perimeter of the base, she switches roles with Armin, carrying the spy while he takes up his rifle. Familiar faces are guarding the gate when they arrive---Jean and Connie, two boys from their training league.

"'Bout time you two get here," Jean calls out. "We thought you were Titan food, Ackerman." 

Connie rolls his eyes. "Nobody thought that. If anyone's going to get eaten, it's definitely not going to be the girl who graduated first in our class." 

They nearly start to bicker, but stop cold when they notice the girl in Mikasa's arms. Jean pushes off from the fence and closes in.

"You found someone out there? Alive?" 

"Barely," Mikasa answers, weaving past him without pausing. "I need to get her to a medic. Now." 

Connie's already jimmying a key into the padlock that chains the front gate shut. Once it's open, he shoulders the gap wider and stands aside to let Mikasa pass, Armin close behind. HQ looms ahead---it used to be a high school, but once nuclear attacks rendered schooling obsolete, the building was granted to the Army as a new base. Armin and Mikasa cross the darkened lawn and let themselves into the school's main building, where their chances of finding a doctor are highest.

They cut through the main office and let themselves into the network of hallways that were formerly the haunts of teachers and staff, but now serve a variety of purposes---offices of high-ranking soldiers, communications relays, and fortunately for them, medical facilities. They veer through the fluorescent corridors and find an empty office with a red cross painted on the door, indicating it carries medical supplies, and shut themselves inside.

"Is this good enough for you?" Mikasa sets the spy down on a cleared-off table and then gestures to the first aid items organized on the counters. 

"I can work with this," he says, nodding. "It's going to be tough, but I can do it." 

"Good. Hurry, before someone starts asking questions---" 

"I must be Someone, because I have some questions, brats," a new voice butts in. Mikasa turns in place and watches one of her commanding officers, Captain Levi, lean against the doorway. "Who the hell is this and why are you trying your damnedest to keep it a secret?"


	2. say uncle

"Captain," Mikasa begins, wondering how she's going to dig herself out of this one. 

"Hold that thought." He turns his heavy-lidded eyes to Armin. "Arlert, wait in the hall for a minute. I need a word with my niece." 

Armin gives her a helpless look and hurries out. Levi closes the door behind him, then pulls a chair out from behind a rickety desk and drops into it. He crosses his boots on the desk and appraises her. "You look like shit." 

"Long night," she says, guarded.

"So I've heard." The captain scrutinizes the motionless girl on the examination table. "Your teammates thought you were dead." 

She purses her lips. Her uncle has a talent for finding out exactly what she doesn't want him to know. "Well, I'm not. Do you need something?" 

"I want a full report." 

Damn it. She hoists herself onto the edge of a counter and crosses her arms, refusing to break eye contact. Most of the soldiers in the base are terrified of Levi; she won't be scared so easily. "Red Arrow was patrolling Sector 14 earlier. We encountered a large group of Titans, and I gave the order to split up." 

"And?"

"I evaded the Titans. When I went to turn back, I found an injured civilian." The lie is in no way visible on her features. 

"And you brought her back here, at great personal risk," he offers. "What I don't understand is why you planned to treat her in secret." 

"Protocol dictates that I shouldn't have stayed out after dark, but I would have had to leave the civilian behind to make it back before sundown. I was avoiding repercussions." 

He raises his eyebrows. "Repercussions that are put in place for the safety of this base and its soldiers." 

"Repercussions that would have led to an unnecessary death." She avoids using the word _innocent_.

"I'm going to let this infraction slide without reporting it," he says, after a lengthy pause. He stands and puts his hand on the doorknob. "But, before I go. What was your kill count?" 

"Sir?"

"How many Titans did you kill to bring her back?" 

She thinks back to her stunt outside the soldier's hiding place, the Titans swarming. "Sixteen, sir." 

He nods, then leaves. 

Armin lets himself back in a moment later, his face betraying his worry. "What did he want?" 

"He just wanted to know what happened," she says. "I handled it." 

"If you say so. I'll get to work."

* * *

The classrooms on the third floor serve as the female barracks; Mikasa heads there once Armin promises that the spy is stable. She's dirty, covered in blood and sweat, and wants nothing more than to bathe and change her clothes. Unfortunately, she forgets to factor in her roommate Sasha.

The brunette bombards her with a bear hug as soon as she steps into the classroom-turned-bedroom. "Mikasa, we thought you were dead! I'm so glad you're okay, and wow, I hope you don't mind me saying this but you smell really bad, I think you should go wash up---"

"I'd love to, but I can't feel my ribs at the moment."

Sasha catches the hint and releases her, flopping down on her cot with a bashful grin. "Sorry. Just, you know, glad you're okay." 

Mikasa fetches an Army t-shirt from her corner of the room and a pair of gym shorts, bidding Sasha a temporary goodbye and making her way to the school's gym, where a bank of showers awaits. At this time of night, they're a ghost town. She sets her clothes down on a sink and goes through the painstaking process of removing her 3DMG---unbuckling strap after strap, setting the bulky blade holders down, unhooking the fan from behind. 

The uniform comes next. She sheds the bullet proof vest and peels the skintight undershirt off, marveling at how the dark material still shows stains from the spy's blood, kicks out of her boots, shrugs off the black cargos. Eren's scarf comes last---folded neatly and left on top of the clean clothes she brought from upstairs. 

The shower takes a few minutes to warm up, so she takes a moment to inspect herself. Very little of the blood covering her is from her own body, but she spies a few cuts that might need more than a bandage. Nothing that will kill her, though. She gratefully scrubs away the grime of the day, glad for just a moment to herself. 

"Specialist Ackerman?" 

Scratch that. 

She savors a final moment under the showerhead, then shuts the water off and snatches a towel from outside the stall. "Specialist Renz." 

Christa hovers in the doorway, tapping her foot nervously. "I need to relay a message." 

"Can it wait?" She looks pointedly at her towel-clad body. 

"No. It's an emergency briefing, called by General Smith himself. I'm supposed to be gathering everyone for it." 

"Understood. Where?" 

"The auditorium. Hurry." 

While she throws on clean clothes, Mikasa can't help but let irrational fears chase themselves around her head. Fears that the spy has been found out, that she's about to face the hard hammer of justice. It's ludicrous, of course, so she pushes those thoughts from her mind and hurries to the main building again, changing into a clean uniform before entering the auditorium.

General Erwin Smith stands behind a podium, severe eyes looking out at the soldiers filling in the auditorium's seats. On the stage with him are several other high-ranking officers in folding chairs---Levi is among them, joined by Colonel Pixis, First Lieutenant Zoë, Chief Warrant Officer Zacharius, and Sergeant Major Dok.

Armin waves her over from where he's seated, surrounded by other members of their training league. Jean and Connie are there, as well as Eren, Sasha, Marco, Mina, and a somewhat winded Christa. She takes a seat between Eren and Armin. 

"What's going on?" she questions, ignoring Eren's dirty look.

"We have no idea," Armin replies, attentively watching the stage. "But it has to be important if they're calling a meeting this late at night." 

Connie twists around in his seat to join the conversation. "You know, I bet they're making transfers. This is one of the biggest bases in the north, and they're probably looking to distribute some of our soldiers to the smaller bases---"

"Don't be stupid," Jean interjects, a characteristic scowl on his brow. "They're not transferring anyone. It's probably just a status update on the state of international affairs. I mean, it's about time we get some news. We don't even know if D.C. ever nuked Russia back." 

"I bet they did." Marco's face is strangely grave. "That's how people are nowadays. An eye for an eye. They nuke us, we nuke them." 

"Whether we retaliated or not isn't the point," Mina notes, her large eyes jumping from the general to her friends and back. "The point is, our government could have done whatever it wanted and we wouldn't even know. Ever since the bombs hit, we've been in a total media blackout."

Christa smiles hopefully. "Well, whatever happened, at least the war is over, right? We don't have to worry about the Russians anymore. Just . . . Titans." 

Mikasa looks down at her lap at Christa's words. Eren notices and nudges her, raising an eyebrow. "Where have you been all day? I thought you were stranded out there." 

"I'm fine," she answers, avoiding eye contact.

It's not good enough for him. "You sure you're okay?" 

"I'm sure." 

He frowns, but he's never been as good at reading her as she is at reading him, so he lets it go. 

On stage, General Smith clears his throat. Silence falls over the soldiers immediately. Lacking a microphone, the general strolls to the front of the stage and projects his voice enough for the farthest listeners to hear.

"Good evening, and thank you for joining me at such a late hour," he begins, hands clasped behind his back. "I'm sure you'll all be interested in this: I received a direct message from the White House today." 

Everyone seems to lean in simultaneously. He goes on. "The Secretary of Defense has issued a warning: Russian spy activity on U.S. soil has increased exponentially in the last month. All U.S. soldiers are advised to be on the lookout for suspicious characters and be wary of possible spies." 

A murmur passes through the crowd; Mikasa's heart starts to beat faster. Towards the front of the auditorium, a young officer stands up. "Sir, the war is over. Are they suggesting that we're reentering a dispute with Russia?" 

"We're simply being cautious," Smith says, raising his voice over the growing whispers. "There's been no official declaration against Russia or any of its affiliates. At this point, the White House is only identifying a possible threat. Our orders are clear: be aware of spies. You're dismissed. Get some rest." 

He salutes. The officers on stage follow his lead, and then in unison, the soldiers in the audience stand and touch their fingertips to their brows, mirroring their superiors. Dismissed, the soldiers stream out of the auditorium through the double doors, headed for the third and fourth floor barracks. Only now, faced with the prospect of going to sleep does Mikasa realize how exhausted she is. 

Thankfully, Sasha passes out as soon as they step inside, leaving Mikasa free to stretch in silence, finally sliding into her cot after a day that felt like years. In the dark, she can almost put the fact that she smuggled a Russian spy into a U.S. Army base out of her mind.

* * *

In the morning, she dresses quickly and hurries downstairs, letting herself into the room where Armin treated the spy. He's already there, replacing her bandages and whistling cheerfully.

"She's responding well to antibiotics. Should wake up soon, if nothing goes south," he reports, tossing soiled bandages in a waste bin and snapping off a pair of latex gloves.

"I hope she stays sleeping a while longer, for all of our sake," Mikasa says. "The second she opens her mouth, they're going to realize she's a Russian." 

Armin eyes her studiously. "Is that such a bad thing? Mikasa, let's be real. If the roles were reversed, do you think this spy would risk so much to save _your_ life?"

"No." The truth behind his words is like a punch in the stomach. "I don't think she would." 

"Maybe it's best to come clean," he prods, leaning against a counter.

"No," she repeats, shaking her head. "No, I'm going to fix this before it gets out of hand. As soon as she can walk, I'm getting her out of here, and that'll be the end of it." 

Armin frowns, but doesn't pry. He gives the spy's vitals another look-over before opening the door and gesturing for her to follow. "We should get breakfast." 

She joins him without protest, though they make the walk to the cafeteria and serve themselves in loaded silence. At the usual table, a lively conversation about the news is underway. 

"I can't believe we're going to go to war with Russia _again_ ," Connie groans around a mouthful of cereal. "Fighting Titans and those crazy people who hate us is bad enough, and now we have to throw psycho Europeans into the mix." 

"We're not going to war again," Mina says firmly. "I believe in diplomacy, Connie. We're not going to make the same mistakes again." 

Jean rolls his eyes, crossing his arms on the table and dropping his chin onto them. "Yeah, right. People never learn from their mistakes. If we were smart enough to do that, we probably wouldn't have been nuked in the first place." 

"Oh, come on, guys, let's not be so down." Christa braves the tension with a trademark smile. "It's only speculation right now. For all we know, there's a good chance nothing will change at all."

"Change might be a good thing," Marco muses, ever the optimist. "I mean, maybe if we go to war again, the civilians will stop fighting us all the time. Once we have a common enemy, anyway." 

"Civilians will stop screwing with us the day Titans fly," Jean laughs.

Hannah, who was busy playfully poking Franz in the ribs, leans over suddenly. "You know, I heard once that there was an abnormal Titan in Sector 9 that really _could_ fly---"

"That's _bullshit_ , Hannah, someone made that up---"

"No, really, I heard that from a guy in Brzenska's squad!" 

"He's pulling your leg." 

"No way---"

They dissolve into an argument about the validity of flying Titans, so Armin and Mikasa take the opportunity to sit down near Eren, who's already inhaled his breakfast and appears to be contemplating seconds.

"What's on the agenda for today?" he asks, noticing Mikasa appear in front of him.

As squad leader, it's her job to receive their squad's weekly assignments and relay them to the rest of Red Arrow. She slides her notepad out of her back pocket and checks the most recent page, finding the task of the day scribbled messily in red pen.

"We're on office duty all morning," she says, making a face. Office duty is the worst punishment for any right-minded soldier; hours of paperwork and running errands for superior officers, and no action to speak of. She scans the bottom of the page. "We're off all afternoon, then we've got the night watch." 

Eren lets his head fall into his arms. "Jesus, this is worst than patrolling. First we've got to do bitch work, and then we've got to go walk around in the dark and hope some ingrate doesn't try to murder us for doing our jobs." 

"At least we get a break in the afternoon," Armin says, a somewhat pained smile on his face. Even he can't find much good in their tragic schedule. 

After breakfast, Red Arrow heads down to the main floor, where they'll be put to work until noon. An assistant calls them over immediately---one of those kiss-up officers who's always looking to rank up to the big leagues. The soldier hands out instructions like candy and leaves them in a cluttered office without much more than ten words. 

"I didn't join the Army to do bitch work," Eren mutters from his spot on the carpet, sorting documents and aggressively shredding many of them. "I joined the Army to fight." 

Armin, seated behind the only desk, dutifully types up after-action reports on a wheezing computer. "There's more to the military than shooting things, Eren." 

"I know that! But I'm a soldier, Armin, I shouldn't be doing a secretary's work."

Armin's reply is cut off by the office door opening. Lieutenant Zoë sails into the tiny room, her face lit up with excitement. "Ah, what good fortune! I was hoping some poor bastards---er, helpful soldiers would be working office duty today. Come, come, I need you all in the lab, pronto." 

Eren and Mikasa exchange wary looks, but Armin smiles brightly and jumps to his feet. Working in the lab is his dream; he plans on moving into the research side of the military as soon as he ranks up high enough to choose the specialty. 

Zoë walks briskly, her white coat flapping behind her when she takes corners. "You all are very lucky to be seeing the lab at a time like this! I've got so many great formulas in the works, you're not going to know what to do with yourselves." 

Eren mutters something suspiciously sarcastic, and Mikasa rewards him with an elbow in the ribs. Armin is oblivious, engaging the lieutenant with boundless questions as they reach the second floor, where Zoë's lab is located. It was once a chemistry classroom, featuring rows of black-topped tables and sinks along the walls. A handful of whitecoats sit behind test tubes and beakers and computers, barely glancing up when the four enter the room.

"Over here, don't be shy," Zoë encourages, beckoning the younger soldiers to her work space. "Look, look, see here. These blood samples? I collected them from _real_ , _living_ Titans!" 

Eren makes a face, but Armin's expression lights up like a Christmas tree. "No way!" 

"Way!" The doctor hands a test tube full of murky red blood to Armin in the manner of a queen giving her knight a sword. "It's incredible. Their blood has no antibodies, it resists molecular separation, and if it isn't left in an airtight container, it completely dissolves into thin air." 

She and Armin launch into an excited conversation about the thrilling characteristics of Titan blood, leaving Eren and Mikasa to lean against the nearest lab table and watch with disinterest. 

"She's nuts," Eren scoffs, raising his eyebrows at the lieutenant, who fist pumps suddenly and seemingly without reason. 

"She's passionate," Mikasa corrects, though she admits that the passion is a bit much. "She's as excited about studying Titans as you are about killing them." 

He gives her a look. "At least my killing them means they don't get the chance to kill someone else. She's just fooling around in here while they stomp around outside and eat people."

"You'll eat your words when she finds a cure one day," she prophecies. 

"As if---"

"Jaeger, I need you! Get over here and hold this very steady. Arlert, you take the sampler---Ackerman, you're dismissed. You can get back to office duty." 

Eren throws her a jealous glance and reluctantly follows Zoë's instructions, leaving Mikasa to head back downstairs. As she's about to let herself back into the office, it occurs to her that she ought to check on the spy---she needs to be the only person in the room when the Russian wakes up, if only to warn her not to give herself away. With a glance around to make sure she's alone, she darts to the end of the hallway and slips into the first aid room.

The spy appears to be sleeping, so she checks her vitals once more and ascertains that, medically, she's stable. Her bandages are clean---the wound's clotting well. As she turns to leave, a rustle of fabric catches her ear.

"Where . . . are we?"

Her heart pounds in her chest. She closes the blinds and turns to face the Russian, whose eyes are open and guarded. 

"Don't speak." She pulls the chair that Levi had been in the previous night up to the side of the bed. "We're in a U.S. Army base." 

The girl opens her mouth, but Mikasa cuts her off. " _Don't. Speak._ Your accent will get you killed around here. Just listen to me. You're safe for now. They think you're just a civilian. The second my superiors realize you're one of them, you're going to wish you were dead.

"I'm planning on getting you out of here as soon as I can," she continues. Then, coldly: "But when I do let you go, you'd better run far away. If I see you again, I'll kill you myself." 

The spy raises her eyebrows, wordlessly wondering why Mikasa doesn't just kill her now. Not having an answer to that, Mikasa stands abruptly. "I'll be back to check on you later. As soon as you're up to it, you're leaving." 

She departs just as quickly as she arrived, unable to handle the Russian's wary stare, to face her own indecipherable actions. 

The rest of the morning is spent in the assistant office, filing papers and typing reports. Busy work, the kind of work that fills your head so you can't think about everything you don't want to think about. She's almost disappointed when noon hits and she's relieved of her duty. Her radio crackles on her belt---it's Eren, telling her that he and Armin are off to grab lunch and inviting her along. 

She ignores the summon, silencing her radio as a door opens a few paces up the hallway and Levi steps out, eyes cast down at a file in his hand. He notices her and pauses.

"How's your mystery civilian?" he asks, in a tone that indicates heavy suspicion.

"Doing well. Should be out of here in no time." 

"I should hope so," he murmurs, tucking the file under his arm. "Where are you supposed to be?" 

She frowns. Levi isn't the type of uncle she likes telling everything to. "I have no assignments this afternoon, sir. My squad is taking the night watch." 

"Be careful out there," he orders, narrowing his eyes. "Your mother will come back to haunt me if anything happens to you, you know." 

"I'm aware," she says stiffly. 

"Just a reminder." He turns slightly, indicating departure. "If I have to plan your funeral, I'll bring you back to life just to kick the shit out of you."

He walks briskly away. Mikasa continues on her way with a quiver of irritation on her brow, which is a common reaction to most interactions with the captain. She wishes he'd treat her like the other soldiers---i.e., leaving her the hell alone. Especially when they both know she's the last person he needs to be looking after.

Lunch with Eren and Armin is a quick affair. The three depart for their bunks immediately after, hoping to catch a few hours' sleep before night watch, which spans from sundown to sunrise and is usually taxing. Extra sleep is hard to come by in the Army; they take full advantage when it's available. Like most good things, it doesn't ever seem to come often enough.

* * *

They meet again half an hour before sundown, on what used to be the school's football stadium. The resident soldiers have converted it into stables---because resources became so scarce following the war, cars and trucks were deemed wasteful, and horses were bred and shipped to military bases all over the country, effectively becoming the universal method of travel. 

The horses are grazing on the football field when they arrive. A young private saddles three of them and distributes them to Eren, Armin, and Mikasa, who mount with two years' experience under their belts, taking the long way off of the campus at a relaxed trot. 

"We're not going far from the base," Eren says, riding between his two teammates. As the navigator, he deftly holds the reins in one hand and a heavily marked map in the other. "Sticking close, only patrolling the sectors that we know don't have Titans. Which is pretty boring if you ask me---"

"No one asked," Mikasa interjects, eyes forward.

They leave through a back gate and take to the middle of the road, aware of how noisy the horses' hooves are on the rain-slicked asphalt, of how conspicuous their positions are. They're wary of ambush---rebel citizens like to ambush small groups of soldiers, and often times, they succeed in the ensuing battle. 

"Weapons ready," she reminds her squad, transferring the reins to one hand while using the other to hold her rifle. 

They make their way into the seedy, civilian-ruled side of town, where the windows are usually blacked out with tarps and corpses reside in the gutters. Gang activity runs rampant here; often times, the military is called in to end vicious turf wars and detain particularly ruthless drug lords. It amazes Mikasa that people still struggle with addiction in a world that's barely breathing.

"Are we after anyone specific?" Eren asks. They've been sent out with a target in mind on several occasions.

Mikasa shakes her head. "Not today. Just keep your eyes peeled for anything dangerous."

He grimaces. "I can't stand night watch. No matter how much we try, we're never going to fix these psychopaths. We might as well leave them alone. Let them kill each other instead of us."

"There are still good people out here," Armin disagrees. "We have to protect them, because if we don't, pretty soon there won't be any good people left." 

"I guess," Eren grunts, unconvinced. "Still think it's too dangerous for us to be riding around out here." 

"We'll be fine," Mikasa assures him. They turn onto a wide avenue. A pair of suspicious men take one look at them and scurry out of sight. They don't pose enough of a threat to be pursued, but Mikasa watches their retreating backs closely until they're swallowed up by darkness.

"Maybe not," Eren protests. "Thunderbolt went on night watch a couple days ago, and that guy from our class in the academy, Thomas Wagner? He's dead now. Got separated from his squad, caught by a band of rebels, and stabbed to death. They couldn't even get his body back." 

"Shut up," she orders, noticing Armin's wide eyes. 

Eren takes the hint and quiets down. They ride in silence for a hundred yards or so before hitting a dead end---the road ahead is blocked entirely by a fallen building, a mountain of impassable rubble rising overhead. Mikasa eases the horse backwards, away from the blockage. 

"Turn around. We're heading east---"

Her words are interrupted by a sudden gunshot---she immediately ducks, flattening herself against the spooked horse, and feels a bullet whiz past. _"Ambush!"_

She rears the horse and turns it around with a hard jerk of the reins. Behind them, a crowd of thugs is gathering, streaming from alleys and old buildings, inserting themselves between Red Arrow and their escape. Mikasa tries to count heads, but there's too many---upwards of thirty if she had to guess. Crude weapons glint in the pale light; crowbars, baseball bat, the occasional firearm.

"Take them down," she shouts, because there's no other option; there's no escape route, no negotiation. Kill or be killed, that's the motto of the streets. 

Eren, always a vicious fighter, immediately slides off his startled horse and swings his rifle up in both hands, aiming down the sight and slamming a few bullets between the nearest man's eyes. Armin is a more reluctant killer, but still an efficient one---he remains atop his horse and fires from there, landing several fatal blows in a matter of seconds. 

Mikasa jumps down from the saddle and joins Eren a few paces ahead, firing a few rounds into the chest of a tattooed crowbar wielder. She sees a shotgun's barrel train on them a half second before it fires. Fisting one hand in Eren's hair, she pulls him down, avoiding the shells by inches, then rolls out of the way of another shot. While the thug reloads, she manages to prop herself up on her elbows and bury a bullet in the shooter's forehead.

The civilian numbers are dwindling, but not fast enough; three soldiers can only hold off so many attackers for so long. Armin abandons his horse soon enough, pushing his way up to his teammates as the thugs begin to surround them. 

"This isn't," Eren pants, firing at a screeching woman, "looking good for us." 

"Keep fighting," Mikasa growls. A smaller assailant---probably a teenager, younger than her---sidles close while she's looking the other way; she clubs him over the head with the butt of her gun, barely avoiding a rusty knife in the gut. 

Arms twist around her throat from behind, restricting her airway. She lands a solid kick in the guy's groin, giving her enough leverage to plant her feet and throw him over her shoulder. He hits the ground hard and tries to scramble up, but she pops a shot off before he does, killing him instantly. 

Coughing, she take inventory on her team---Armin is holding on for dear life, spinning this way and that to avoid attacks, while Eren is valiantly taking on every civilian he can see. Mikasa shoots at a man just as he raises his arm to bury a cleaver in Eren's back. Eren notices, throws her a grateful look, then returns to the task at hand. 

"Mikasa!"

She hears Armin scream, turning her head just soon enough to see a burly man jump towards her. They both hit the wet asphalt, slick with rain and blood. She struggles against his weight---she's no weakling, excelling in all areas of physical strength, but the man is twice her size and has her arms pinned under his knees. Her rifle lies a foot away.

The thug lifts a short club overhead and then brings it down forcefully. She jerks her head to the side in a last ditch defense; the blow clips her temple painfully. Disoriented, she watches the man draw his arm back again before he suddenly goes still, a flower of blood blossoming across his chest. 

He slumps sideways. Clenching her teeth from the effort, she succeeds in shoving him off and scoops up her rifle. A trickle of blood chases its way down the side of her face, and everything in her vision seems to shift slightly. Fighting the dizziness caused by the minor head trauma, she brings the rifle up and fires at a charging thug; the force of the bullets knocks the woman back several feet. 

"We got this," Eren says from a few feet over, swinging the butt of his rifle at a man's head like a bat. 

Indeed, only a handful of civilians are left; several flee to avoid bodily harm, and the ones who stay are dispatched easily. Their numbers helped them, but even that isn't enough to combat three excellently trained soldiers. As Armin pumps a round into the final thug, quiet finally falls upon the bloodied street. 

"This is why I hate the night watch," Eren complains, resting his hands on his knees. His voice is thickened by his badly split lip. 

Armin seems physically unscathed, but his hollow eyes tell Mikasa that he's not alright. "Can we just get out of here?" 

"Of course," she replies, pressing the heel of her hand to her temple. It comes away stained crimson. 

As she turns to coax her horse closer, a wet, pained cough catches her attention. The large man who had nearly bashed her head in lies glaring at her, one hand uselessly cupping the bullet wound in his chest. He coughs again, a bib of blood flowing out as he does so. 

"That must be nice, huh?" he says, voice scathing and strained. "You lot can just leave. Just hop on your little horses and leave this dump. We---my kind---we don't get that luxury."

"Yeah, well, you're going to a better place now," Eren scoffs, as more blood spills out of the man's mouth. 

"You all wonder why we come after you," the thug continues, his eyes now fixed on the starless sky. "Wonder why we come after you with guns and knives. You don't even know how good you have it. Don't even know what we go through. Don''t even . . ."

But the rest of his speech trails off, and with one look at his glassy eyes, Mikasa knows he's dead.

It takes a few tense moments to corral the horses back together, and then several minutes to calm the animals down enough to be ridden. Once they've all mounted again, they move slowly, more carefully than they did when the night started---the risk of attack feels much more real to them now, after the horror show they've just escaped, after the bloodshed. 

Her head pounds from the thug's strike. She has to struggle just to focus on the road, just to keep from sliding off her horse. Few more hours till dawn---she hopes she can make it.

"He was right," Armin says, breaking the silence as they weave past an overturned bus. "The civilian back there. He was right." 

"About?"

"Us," he clarifies. His big blue eyes are fixed upwards. "We don't know what they have to live through. We don't really understand them at all." 

"No excuse for them to try to kill us," Eren snaps, wincing when his words upset his injury. 

"There's never an excuse for killing," Mikasa says. "But that hasn't stopped us, either."


	3. misguided ghosts

Watery gray sunlight is just beginning to strike when they return to HQ, handing their horses off to a private and making the trek back to the main building. Eren immediately tramps upstairs to bed; Armin recommends that he and Mikasa check on the spy and take care of Mikasa's head wound, so the two head to the medical rooms in the back. 

"Eren's onto something," Armin sighs. They evade a passing commander who walks with his eyes glued to a report. "I would kill for some sleep right now." 

"Few more minutes," she says, but her head is thundering and she can't help but agree with him. 

He takes the doorknob in hand and twists. "Let's hope so." 

Mikasa is expecting the spy to be asleep or half-conscious, watching the door for intruders, but the eyes that meet hers across the room are like hers---gray, flat, unyielding. Her uncle sits on the edge of the examination table; the Russian is nowhere in sight. In her chest, her heart contracts painfully. 

"Where is she?" Armin asks nervously. 

"I was going to ask you the same question," Captain Levi says, shrugging. He crosses an ankle over his knee and stares at the two with somewhat diluted interest. "But it seems you don't have an answer."

"We've been on night watch," Mikasa informs him, taking a step into the room and looking around for hints as to where the girl went. "What are you doing here?"

Levi shrugs again, seemingly bored. "Arlert, you can go."

Armin opens his mouth to speak, but with a nod from Mikasa, he turns on his heel and bustles out of the room. Mikasa drops into the only chair and crosses her arms. "Are you avoiding my question?"

"Hardly." The captain inspects his nails. "I admit, I came here to ask the mysterious girl a few questions while you and your squad were out of the way. Imagine my surprise when I found the room empty. No one on the floor had even seen her leave. So, I began thinking. What kind of injured teenager can escape from a military base without anyone noticing?" 

She has no response. He continues, "You see, it could have been coincidence. Maybe someone had seen her go, and I just missed them. Or maybe you had come in earlier and smuggled her out. But those possibilities just didn't sit right, and the craziest little thought wormed its way into my head." 

"A thought, sir?" 

"It came to me when I thought about the general's emergency meeting last night," he clarifies, getting slowly to his feet. "Russian spies are on everyone's mind at a time like this. It only made sense that I would consider that scenario, and the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. The secrecy, the scale of the wounds, and there was one little detail you forgot to cover up. The boots. I've seen them in battle before, watched that style tramp past on the feet of Russian soldiers in Siberia."

She doesn't show it---she never does---but her insides are twisting with fear. Her superior officer, her uncle, has her all figured out; he knows that she's an indirect traitor to her country, an ally to a Russian. He starts towards her, and she half-expects him to hit her. It wouldn't be the first time; Levi's known for lashing out at younger officers if they give him enough reason. Eren's been on the bad end of the captain's wrath more than a few times. 

Instead, he swipes a first aid kit off the counter and opens it, retracting his hand with a square bandage and rubbing alcohol. He sets the kit aside and none-too-gently pushes her hair away from the still-bleeding wound on her temple. She sits absolutely still, shocked---Levi isn't an affectionate or warm man. Receiving simple medical attention from her uncle is the equivalent of a bear hug to her.

He doesn't warn her about the sting of the alcohol or try to soothe her with empty words; he cleans the wound in silence and then sticks the bandage over it with a rough hand. "There. Idiot. You should have patched that up in the field." 

"I wasn't thinking clearly." 

"No, you weren't." He latches the kit closed, his back to her. "What the hell _were_ you thinking?"

She considers this, her eyes burning holes in the back of his vest. "I was thinking about my mother." 

He freezes with his hands still touching the first aid kit. Mentions of his sister, Mikasa's mother, are common when he's the one making them; to hear his niece talk about her so casually floors him. Slowly, he pivots in place and searches her expression. "Go on." 

"When I was . . . ," she starts. She thinks better of it. "When she was killed . . . when she and my father were killed, when those raiders broke into the house, my father was killed instantly. But she didn't die right away---she was alive, for a while, and bleeding all over the kitchen floor. And I remember thinking, how do I stop this bleeding? Why didn't I stop those men?

"I was nine," she deadpans. "I couldn't have done anything, anyway. But I was angry with myself for a long time for not doing anything at the time. I got over it. Went into the military, trained, you know the rest. . . . Then there's this girl, who's as badly wounded as my mother was before she died, and I realized that I _could_ do something this time. I had the training I needed to save her life, and that's all I was thinking about. That, and my mother." 

He looks like he wants to berate her for her actions, but her explanation stops him in his tracks. Rubbing his eyebrow tiredly, he flips the light switch and opens the door, motioning for her to leave. "Go get some rest, Ackerman. I think you need it."

* * *

She takes her uncle's advice without protest. Her sleep isn't as satisfying as she would have liked; it's plagued with nightmares, awful dreams of the Russian spy returning, of Titans ripping her squad to shreds, of civilian ambush. But it's sleep, and she never takes it for granted, nightmares or no. The afternoon sun is fading when she wakes up tangled in her blanket.

Downstairs, the cafeteria is starting to fill with the dinner rush. Sasha, Jean, and Connie complain loudly to anyone who will listen because they've got the night watch and aren't thrilled to throw themselves to the wolves. Eren is marveling at the fact that Mikasa's still breathing, because he assumed Levi would have flayed her alive after the fiasco with the Russian. She throws Armin a sharp look when she realizes that Eren knows the whole story, but Armin just lifts his shoulders guiltily and says that he needed to talk to someone about it. 

The buzz of conversation flatlines immediately when the double doors open and General Smith enters the room, flanked by Levi and Zoë. He scans the area for a moment before stepping onto a bench and raising his voice to be heard. 

"Good evening," he begins, formal as ever. "I've just received a message from capital intelligence. D.C. choppers have dropped off four months worth of supplies a few miles away from here, near the mountains, intended for our base. We're mounting an expedition to retrieve the cargo _tonight_." 

"Sir, we already have orders in place," an officer says from the far left of the room. 

"Some soldiers will remain here, to defend the base," Smith explains. "Others will be joining the expedition. Lieutenant Zoë will be reading off the squads who are coming along tonight. Lieutenant?" 

He steps down and is replaced by the ever smiling Dr. Zoë, who unfolds a piece of paper dramatically and clears her throat. "Here we are. Squads that are assigned to this expedition---Thunder, Black Mask, Buffalo, Yellow Six . . ."

Mikasa grips the edge of the table tightly. Half of her hopes desperately to be left behind; another, more dutiful half hopes to be of any service to her comrades. 

" . . . Red Arrow . . ."

"Yes!" Eren whisper-shouts. "I've never been on a supply-drop expedition before, this is going to be _sick_."

"The mountains," Armin murmurs. "That's pretty far out. Why not do the drop closer to home?" 

Armin's question goes unanswered as the general takes the bench again, instructing those assigned to the expedition to head down to the football stadium and find a horse. By the time Red Arrow makes it to the field, horses are already being hooked up to carts and the sawed-off backs of pick-up trucks, ready to be filled with the bounty they planned to retrieve. Senior officers stand in the bleachers, watching the younger soldiers saddle up.

The expedition is set up in a long, train-like formation: younger officers make up the front, senior soldiers bring up the rear, and the carts are sandwiched in between. Mikasa climbs onto a dappled gray mare and waits for Eren and Armin to mount their own horses, then takes point. A lieutenant directs them to take up position in front of a horse-drawn truck bed. 

They wait for the order to move, their horses stamping their hooves and tossing their heads impatiently. Full darkness is beginning to fall over them. An old, decorated officer passes by, telling those in the front vanguard that the expedition will be moving north and the order to stop will come from the rear. After the farthest squad forward receives this information, the order to move is given from the rear, and the expedition sets off through the back gates of the campus. 

"I don't like going upstate," Eren says, on Mikasa's right side. "At least down here, we know what to expect. Up there, people are even crazier. Bunch of hicks running around with shotguns and bows and arrows, I swear." 

"They'd be stupid to attack us," she disagrees. "A full military expedition is the last thing I'd pick a fight with." 

"I never said they weren't stupid." 

The dark streets of the city are unnaturally quiet, but Mikasa expected this. The armed thugs of NYC love to pick on small squadrons, but they know it's suicide to come after a group of this scope. She appreciates the lack of enraged civilians as they march through the city. 

The route chosen is slightly out-of-the-way, trailing west before turning north, because the group wants to avoid Titan-infested territories. Humans are smart enough to stay out of the way, but Titans aren't afraid of their numbers. Mikasa keeps her ears peeled over the noise of horse hooves on asphalt and the soft sound of wheels rolling, listening hard for the drumbeat of Titan footsteps, but she doesn't catch them as they leave the city limits. 

The surroundings change drastically. The colossal buildings of New York City dwindle and then fade, replaced with quiet residential areas that have been abandoned for years. Soon these homes begin to disappear as well, until they're traversing long, empty roads and passing through long-overgrown greenery. The Catskill Mountains loom ahead---their destination. 

"I've never been to the Catskills," Armin says, eyes wide as he takes in the view. 

"Our training league went once, remember? You didn't go because you had that broken knee, I think." Eren thinks back to their days as cadets, his face faraway. "It was terrible. Raining the whole damn time, and we saw a bunch of psychos with crossbows watching us all the while. They were actually sitting in the trees---just sitting fifteen feet up, like they weren't even afraid of falling." 

"They were nothing to worry about," Mikasa says flatly, remembering the trip well. "Too cowardly to engage even a group of cadets." 

"I hope you're right," Armin replies, his hands curled tightly around the reins.

Word travels from the back of the procession---just a few more miles to the drop zone. Several minutes pass, and then several senior officers gallop to the front, taking point as they approach the destination. The forest-ridden area they're in gives way to a small settlement---tiny cottages spring up along the sides of the road, replacing the coniferous trees. They slow their pace as they begin to pass between the cottages, but they appear wholly abandoned; nothing moves, nothing breathes. 

"Target in sight," someone calls. 

In the center of the road, they see their reason for coming---several crates stamped U.S. ARMY are stacked haphazardly on the cracked asphalt, untouched and pristine. The expedition stops entirely. At the front, General Smith rides forward, then rears his horse and turns to face his soldiers. 

"Bring it in," he shouts. "Let's load up and move---" 

The silence of the area breaks violently and without warning---one minute, the general's voice flies solo, and then it's joined in the air by hoarse, terrifying roars. People begin to stream from the cottages, kicking doors open and vaulting through open windows. They're exactly the people Eren was afraid of earlier---rugged, dirty, upstate men and women, the kind who were raised in the mountains and show it. Crossbows and sawed-off shotguns are suddenly everywhere. 

Venomous pain shoots through Mikasa's leg. Numbly, she looks down and sees a homemade arrow protruding from her thigh, still quivering from impact. 

"Initiate offensive maneuvers!" Smith bellows, and the pain of the arrow is forgotten. She takes up her rifle in her free hand and does what she is trained to do. 

Armin and Eren immediately peel away from her sides and gallop towards the attackers. She stays in the center of the road, popping off shots at all who approach her or the cargo a few yards ahead. They're not fast attackers, but they are gritty; she sees a man take four bullets to the shoulder and still keep running, managing to bury a hunting knife in a soldier's neck. 

_"Grenade!"_

She twists her head to the side and sees it, an olive green orb rolling past her, and digs her heels into the horse's flanks. It makes a desperate noise and shoots forward, sprinting off the road, just as the grenade detonates. Shrapnel flies, bodies fall. The wave of heat just barely touches her back.

The horse is too spooked to stop on a dime, so she lets it run through the overgrown grass for a moment, firing at any who attempt to follow. Once the horse is calmed, she tugs the reins and sets back to the thick of the battle. Gruesome images meet her---a soldier is decapitated from behind with a machete; a Catskill native loses both legs in the wake of another grenade. These deaths don't bother her; she's seen worse. 

The tide of the battle turns in favor of the soldiers soon enough, but the casualties are heavy. They end the Catskill ambush within minutes of its start. The last native falls with a bullet in his brain, and the quiet that had deceived them when they arrived returns. The air thrums with adrenaline as soldiers jump down from their horses or grip their wounds. 

Mikasa gets down from her horse only to fall unsteadily to her knees. In the wake of the thrilling battle, she hadn't even thought about the arrow in her thigh; she looks down and notes somewhere in the back of her mind that that much blood can't be good, and the fact that she feels nothing where the arrow pierces her flesh can't be good either. Gritting her teeth, she gets to her feet and clutches the saddle for support, keeping her weight off her bad leg. 

General Smith still rides, looking out at his grim soldiers with shadowed eyes. "Collect the bodies of our fallen comrades. When you're done, get the supplies. We're leaving as soon as we can." 

She knows she's in no state to move anything, let alone walk, so she gets back in the saddle with immense difficulty and clicks one heel to move the horse out of the way. On the side of the road, she watches the able soldiers roll Catskill corpses to the sides and make way for fallen U.S. men, who are carried to one of the pulled carts and piled as gently as possible. General Smith oversees it all, his eyes revealing nothing. 

After the bodies are taken care of, the crates are loaded up, a process that involves a lot of heavy lifting and sweating. The soldiers are worse for the wear by the time the last crate is secured and General Smith gives the order to get back in formation. 

"Ackerman, you okay?" Jean rides by on his way back to his position, noticing the arrow stem sticking out of her leg. "You should get that looked at." 

She looks down at it, then back at him. "If I pull it out now, it will bleed even more. I'm waiting until we get back." 

He shrugs and moves on, the expression on his face indicating that he thinks she's nuts. She directs her horse back into position just as Eren and Armin return, both of them fussing about her injury. She brushes them off and focuses on moving; as long as she doesn't think about the wound, it doesn't hurt. Instead, she looks over her squad---Eren's shoulder bleeds from a jagged, open gash and Armin's face is bruised from a fist fight.

The return trip feels longer than the initial journey. Everyone's tired; loaded down with cargo and corpses, the two-hour trek becomes a four-hour funeral march. Her vision sways sometimes. Probably a product of blood loss, but she tries to remain calm under stress. Her squadmates flank her, faces as grim as hers, and say nothing.

As the skeletons of skyscrapers begin to rise up in the distance, the expedition takes a break, and Mikasa inspects the arrow. It seems to have gone in straight; she could pull it out, wrap a tight bandage around the bleed, and take care of it when she gets back. The thought of yanking the arrow out is horrifying, so she doesn't think. She bites down on her scarf to keep from making noise or biting her tongue off, curls her fingers around the shaft, and rips it free as fast as possible. 

Even she, who's one of the most hardened young soldiers in the entire base, doesn't handle the pain gracefully. Her formerly unfeeling thigh suddenly flares like someone lit a fire under the skin; her eyes water and her teeth start to ache from clenching so hard. Swallowing whimpers, she lets the arrow fall from shaking fingers and dresses the wound as steadily as she can, trying not to fall off the horse in the process. 

Eren notices her crude medical skills and widens his eyes. "Holy _shit_."

* * *

Annie meets her comrades outside of the city just as dawn begins to creep its fingers over them. They're dressed in the wintry fatigues of the Russian Army, rifles strapped to their backs, and they take in the sorry sight of her with expressionless faces. Reiner and Bertholdt are there, fighting to keep their faces as blank as the others. 

"Leonhardt." Her commander is a statue, carved out of stone. "You're alive." 

She nods.

"You'd better come along, then. We have much to discuss." 

* * *

Those who were left at the base cheer when the expedition returns, then fall silent when they take in the situation---the cart full of bodies, the wounded survivors. 

The rest of the evening is spent on the lawn of the school, cremating the dead; there's no where to bury them, so burning the corpses is the most respectful option. All members of the base watch mournfully as those who were killed are lost in flame and smoke, then begin to trickle away, back to their duties, until only the truest friends of the dead are left to pay their respects. 

Mikasa, Eren, and Armin stay for a while, but the need to tend to their injuries is too pressing to stand around forever. Armin masterfully cleans and bandages Mikasa's thigh, advising her to stay off it for a while, and then patches up Eren's shoulder with ease. As he's rubbing a soothing cream over his bruises, the door to the medic room slams open and a wide-eyed Connie appears. 

"Did you guys hear?" he says, out of breath from running. "Some guys on night watch saw a shit ton of Russians towards the outskirts of the city." 

Mikasa's pain-addled brain immediately jumps to the spy; mouth dry, she asks, "What happened?" 

"Well, it was only three of ours, so they didn't engage. That would be suicide. But you know what this means, right? It's really true. The Russians really _are_ snooping around here."

"And we're just letting them get away?" Eren barks, jumping to his feet.

"Hell no," Connie laughs. "Levi is putting together a search team right now. They're leaving soon." 

"I want in on that." Eren waves away Armin's recommendations to take it easy. "Where are they?" 

"He's getting them together in the cafeteria. You goin'?"

"Hell yes." The two boys leave excitedly. 

"Mikasa," Armin says, pointing a finger in warning. "Don't even think about it. You're really hurt." 

She limps to the door anyway, ignoring his spluttering protest. "I have to know." 

Armin follows her all the way to the cafeteria, going on about how stupid she's being. Eventually hobbling becomes too tiring, and he grudgingly lets her snake an arm over his shoulder, supporting her as they enter the cafeteria. A group of fresh soldiers stand before Captain Levi, who's perched on a chair to get a good look at them. Eren and Connie have managed to slip in with the party.

"Go find a rested-up horse and meet me at the back gate in fifteen mikes," Levi is concluding. 

Armin and Mikasa step out of the way to let the eager soldiers exit, Levi bringing up the rear. Mikasa turns to Armin and says, "I need to talk to him. I'll be okay." 

He purses his lips in disapproval but goes. Levi notices her as he leaves, immediately sizing up the bandages ringing around her thigh. "What the hell happened to you?" 

"Catskills. An arrow." She doesn't care to entertain his questions, but rather ask a few of her own. "What's going on? With the Russians?" 

He knows why she's asking without her having to say it. He glances around to make sure they're alone before answering. "A squad saw them meeting what they described as 'a small female in civilian clothing' outside of the city limits. They spoke for a moment before moving on. The squad rode back to HQ as fast as possible, but I doubt we'll be able to pick up the Russians' trail. We'll just have to try---cover all our bases." 

"Thanks." She starts to walk away, forgetting momentarily about her injury and nearly tripping over herself. He grabs her arm and raises his thin eyebrows. 

"I hope you weren't planning on joining my search party," he says. "Not only are you way too fucked up to be of any use at all, I'm not letting you anywhere near another Russian unless they're already dead. Go upstairs, get some sleep, swallow some pain pills and stay out of the way. Understood?" 

"Understood, sir," she deadpans, pulling her arm away and limping towards the stairs. 

"And get a pair of crutches, for god's sake."

* * *

She acknowledges how ridiculously abnormal her sleeping schedule is, and the fact that she doesn't care at all. Sleep comes easy with all the medication she's on, and, even better, it's free of nightmares. Dusk is just settling down when she finally opens her eyes, relishing in the last traces of sleep before restlessness takes her and forces her out of bed, into uniform, and downstairs. 

At dinner, Eren and Connie are eagerly recounting the events of the search to the table. Mikasa sits down as they begin telling the story, sounding as if they aren't telling it for the first time.

"At first we thought it was pretty hopeless," Eren begins, setting down his cup. "The Russians had an hour head start on us and they didn't leave a trace---or so we thought." 

Connie jumps in seamlessly. "Right around the place where they were spotted, we found a cigarette that no one thought anything of. But Captain Levi hopped off his horse and looked at it for a while, then said, 'They were here, alright. Stupid bastards left one of their shitty European cigarettes behind.'"

"So we kept going, out of the city," Eren continues. "Followed the main roads for a while. We were going to turn back, but then we heard dogs barking, you know? And dogs don't just survive on their own, they've gotta have owners, and Russians really like dogs, those sons of bitches. We kept going." 

"The captain gave us the order to stop and tie up the horses. We continued on foot, to maintain the element of surprise, and started creeping through this old abandoned neighborhood---lots of rowhouses that were all broken down and empty and whatever. A great place to lay low, if you know what I mean."

Eren clears his throat. "Pretty soon we started hearing voices, too. One of our guys looked around the corner of a house and saw a bunch of them standing around with rifles, looking the other way. Like, a _lot_ of them. Too many for us to take in a fight, even with surprise on our side. We were going to creep out of their and come back with reinforcements when one of their dog sniffs us and goes insane, barks its head off." 

"Oh my god," Mina whispers, eyes the size of dinner plates. 

"'Oh my god' is right," Connie says, nodding knowingly. "Captain Levi gave the order to run and we did. Ran like hell. We heard them release the dogs, but we managed to get back to the horses and get out of there before anyone's face got bit off." 

"Can't believe you made it back," Marco says. "That sounds scary as hell." 

Eren looks left and right and leans in. "That's not the scariest part. You know what was?"

"What?"

"Don't leave us in suspense, man!" 

"The Russians had 3DMG," he says. "We don't know how they got it, but they have it." 

"Holy shit," Jean mutters. "How the fuck did that happen? _Our_ guys made 3DMG, and they made it exclusively for us." 

Connie shrugs. "We're not sure. The captain thinks they found a dead soldier somewhere, stole the gear, studied it, and figured out how to make their own."

"This changes the game, man," Marco says, shaking his head. "I mean, they nuked us, what, eight years ago? We got past it. Picked ourselves back up. Ended the war. We thought everything was looking up until the Titans showed up two years ago, but we built 3DMG and got past that, too. And now the Russians are back and stealing our gear? This is messed up." 

"Well, so what, right?" Eren, never easily discouraged. "They don't know how to use 3DMG the way we do. I doubt they know even a fraction of the maneuvers we do, or even how to kill Titans. So let's not get wound up. They're on our turf, remember?"

* * *

Erwin is hunched over field reports when Levi lets himself into the office. The general lifts his eyes long enough to acknowledge his visitor, then continues sifting through the papers scattered across his desk. 

"You should take a break," Levi advises, kicking the door closed behind him. "You look fit to pass out any time now." 

Erwin sighs. "I can't rest now. Not knowing that there are Russians in _my_ city, anyway." 

"They're not banging down the door, Erwin." Levi pours himself a cup of coffee from the pot on the end table, then claims the chair in front of the general's desk. "You have time to get some sleep, figure things out. Working yourself to death isn't going to do shit for anyone."

"I can't, Levi. They could be planning anything---terrorism, bombs, an outright attack on this base. I have to be ready. _We_ have to be ready." 

Levi drinks deeply, setting the cup down on the arm of his chair. "And we will be. Really, you're getting worked up for nothing. They clearly aren't ready to attack anything if they were hiding out in some suburbs."

"It doesn't add up," Erwin says, ignoring him. "How the hell did they get here? The White House amped up air surveillance on the east coast to all time highs. No aircraft came within one hundred miles of our shores without getting spotted and blasted out of the air immediately."

"Didn't you ever consider watercraft? I've read all the reports. Sonar systems in our waters were decayed beyond repair after the nuclear attack. They were never replaced." 

Erwin looks up slowly, his face all hard edges and sharp angles. His eyes are darker than usual. "Are you saying there are Russian submarines in our waters as we speak?"

"It's a suggestion," Levi says, shrugging one shoulder. "I wouldn't know. We won't know until we send out a team." 

The general stands abruptly. "I'll call one together right now. We can start with the Hudson, comb for submarines, and follow it to the coast---"

"Erwin. Stop."

"Excuse me?" 

Levi stands with an audible sigh and reaches across the desk, putting a thin hand on Erwin's broad shoulder and pushing him back down in his seat. "Stop. Just stop. We lost people today, Erwin. A lot of good soldiers died in the mountains. The ones who didn't die are trying to mourn. They're licking their own wounds. It's too much too soon, alright? Give it a few days, let everyone recuperate, and when we do get back out there, the Russians won't stand a chance."

"You're probably right," Erwin murmurs, rubbing his forehead. "You're probably right."

"We all need rest."


	4. night of the living dead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> s/o to the commentators so far, y'all stay frosty

By the end of the week, Mikasa's eliminated the limp in her gait and is walking frequently, despite Armin's protests.

"You have to give the leg time to heal right," he says, over and over, day after day.

She brushes off his concerns every time. "I can't sit around and do nothing, Armin. I can't." 

The week after the expedition, Red Arrow is put on patrol once again. It's late morning when they leave the base on foot, rifles loaded, 3DMG prepped, headed for Sector 9. Not the ideal destination---they're all nervous, because Sector 9 is rumored to be swarming with Titans. It was Ground Zero for a while; the first nuke struck there, the first Titans rose there. The more superstitious soldiers won't go anywhere near it. 

"I hope we see some Russians," Eren says, leaning his rifle up against his shoulder as he walks. "I want to give them a piece of mind." 

Armin rolls his eyes. "Don't be stupid, Eren. Why would the Russians be hanging out in Titan territory?" 

"Why would we be hanging out there? Ever thought of that?" 

"I have," Armin concedes, his eyes thoughtful. "But I don't question orders. You shouldn't either." 

"Yeah, I guess. Still doesn't make much sense to me." He takes a running start and leaps onto the trunk of a sedan with all its windows blown out, climbing onto its roof and then hopping down on its hood. He steps onto the taxi in front of it and crosses it in a similar fashion, using the train of rusted automobiles as a pathway. 

"Get down from there." Mikasa eyes him warily, expecting him to impale himself on a broken windshield any minute. 

"Ah, you ruin all my fun." He does a sloppy flip off the hood of a town car and lands in a hasty crouch, then comes up grinning. 

It's her turn to roll her eyes. "I'm more concerned with all the noise you're making than how much fun you're having, sorry." 

They turn onto a wide, once-busy avenue that slopes downward. It's in the messy process of being entirely flooded. She guesses that the sewers are busted---they're not exactly under maintenance anymore. Greenish water creeps towards them, apparently getting deeper the farther they go. She takes a cautious step into the sloshing water, then holds her rifle over her head (3DMG is watertight, but guns are easily jammed by it). "Weapons up."

Eren and Armin follow her lead and wade after her. The going is slow---a combination of the murky water and the cars scattered haphazardly all over the avenue, frozen in the place they were when the bombs dropped. The water eventually reaches their waists and then seems to even out; they continue without worrying about having to swim the rest of the way. 

Other concerns nag at Armin. "I don't like this. There could be marine life in the water, or something worse. Who knows what radiation did to animals, if it turned humans into Titans?" 

"You know, I heard some whitecoats talking about that once," Eren says. "They mentioned how some animals were unaffected---dogs and cats and birds, they all came out fine. But other animals just disappeared. No one's seen a snake or a coyote or a snapping turtle in New York since before the attacks. It's weird." 

"Probably dead," Mikasa says shortly. "Just keep moving." 

"Hope you're right," Armin mutters. "I don't want to see a mutated snapping turtle coming after me, thanks." 

At the intersection, the avenue continues, and two side roads branch off; all of them are flooded. They take the side road that'll get them to Sector 9 faster and move with more purpose, all three of them somewhat disturbed by the thought of radiation-infected marine life dragging them under the deceptively calm waters. 

As it turns out, the threat isn't in the water at all.

"You both heard that, right?" Eren asks out of the blue, slowing to a stop. He turns around to look at his teammates, resting his rifle across his shoulders and letting his hands hang limply on the ends of it. 

"I didn't hear anything," Armin answers, eyes widening. Mikasa just shakes her head.

Eren whips his head side to side, squinting at the shadows between buildings and cars. "It was a growl. Like a dog, maybe." 

"Russians?" Mikasa asks, before she can stop herself. 

"No, not like those dogs . . . more feral. Listen." 

They all strain their ears then, preening the quiet street for threatening sounds. The water laps gently at their hips. Besides that, they hear nothing. 

"Maybe you imagined it," Armin says, a nervous smile on his face. 

"No way. It was real---" He breaks off as another growl rips the air---and this time, all three of them hear it. 

"Where the hell did that come from?" 

"Shut up," Mikasa hisses, turning in a circle and bringing her rifle down from where she was holding it overhead. She flips on the flashlight; perpetual clouds make the water closer to black than green, and the shadows of buildings are thick enough to cut with a knife. She scans the left side of the road, where she guesses the noise came from, and sees nothing. 

"Doesn't make sense." Eren points his rifle in that direction as well, squinting again. "What the hell was that?" 

"Eren, _move_!" Armin, behind them, suddenly splashes backwards.

Mikasa whips her head around in time to see a brown-gray blur launch itself from the hood of a cab at Eren's back; he turns just in time and shoots blindly, knocking the attacker out of the air in a bloody spray. The body hits the water and floats for a moment---just long enough for them to identify it. 

"That's a fucking coyote," Eren spits, wiping the animal's blood from his cheek. 

"It's rabid," Mikasa notes, watching foam from the coyote's jaws dissolve in the water. The corpse begins to sink below the water.

"Guys?" 

They both turn their attentions to Armin, whose face is frozen in horror. "What? What is it?" 

He swallows, and all of the parts of his face seem to thaw one after another. "Coyotes travel in packs." 

"Son of a _bitch_ \---"

She bites down on any more obscenities and vaults onto the back of a caved-in car, barking at Eren and Armin to do the same. Fighting in the water won't do any good for them; it slows them down, restricts their view. From atop the car, she can see them now---they emerge from between the ivy-covered buildings to their right, animals to the wildest degree. Frothing jaws sport jagged teeth; black eyes glitter with starvation. She counts---fourteen, maybe fifteen. 

Eren fires his rifle into the air. Warning shots. Rather than scaring the coyotes off, the gunshots seem to excite them---they bark and howl, hopping lithely onto cars and taxis, stalking towards them one vehicle at a time. 

"Weapons free," Mikasa affirms. 

Eren immediately starts shooting, sending two bloodied coyotes sailing off the husk of a car and into the water. Armin, as usual, is more conservative, aiming carefully whenever possible and hoarding bullets. Mikasa likes to think of herself as the happy medium between her teammates---as ferocious as Eren when she needs to be, but still retaining a cool head like Armin.

One of the wild dogs gets within a yard of her and sinks back on its haunches, ready to spring. Mikasa fires between its glistening eyes and watches it fall forward, sliding from the hood of the car and splashing into the water. She takes a step back and jumps a car length forward, advancing on the pack. The healing wound in her thigh sings in protest when she lands, but she ignores the pain, dropping to one knee and popping another shot off at a snarling coyote. 

Armin shouts suddenly. She looks around and watches helplessly as a coyote slams into him and knocks them both off Armin's perch. They disappear in a flurry of limbs and murky water, too dark and obscured for Mikasa to get a clear shot. She's about to take off and rip the coyote off of Armin herself when she sees Eren flash by, sprinting across the tops of cars like a madman.

"I've got him!" he yells back at her. "Hold them off!" 

She trusts Eren to save Armin, so she spins around in time to see a bold coyote leap at her. She falls backwards, landing against an already cracked windshield, and feels it start to bend inwards. The coyote barks and lunges towards her. She darts a hand out at the last minute and curls it in the mangy fur of the coyote's neck, stopping it from burying its teeth in her throat, then brings up the hand with the rifle in it and fires.The wild dog jerks violently from the impact of the bullets and then slides away. She hears the splash as its body hits the water.

As she's sitting up, she realizes that the dogs were smart enough to advance while she was distracted; two of them are scrabbling onto the hood of the car. They get their footing and then crouch to spring. Her finger squeezes the trigger, but there's a deathly click, and no bullets---she's out. In the time it would take her to reload, the coyotes could rip her to shreds.

A desperate plan comes to her just as the two animals launch towards her; she grips her rifle tight and then drives it hard into the windshield. Glass falls in a curtain of shards, and her back hits the dashboard. The startled coyotes sail right over her and land in the interior of the car, flailing wildly in the small space. Mikasa jams a new magazine into the rifle as the coyotes collect themselves, now more enraged than before, and prepare to attack again; she stops them in their tracks, rolling onto her stomach and spraying the cab of the car with bullets.

Not eager to leave her back unprotected, she scrambles onto the roof of the car and does a fast three-sixty. Armin and Eren are alright, aside from a few scrapes on Eren and the fact that Armin's soaking wet. She counts the coyotes again---only seven left, give or take. Easy from here. She has a good vantage point, and isn't about to give it up. 

Eren joins her on the car's roof and drops to a knee, hooting wildly whenever he kills one. Armin is last to crawl onto the car, lying in a prone position and aiming down the sight of his rifle to get clear shots. They give him the honor of finishing what they hope is the last coyote, then take a deserved breather on their little island. 

"Shit, that stings," Eren whines, as Armin rubs alcohol over the scrape on Eren's cheek and then places a bandage over it. 

"It'll hurt a lot worse if you get an infection," Armin chides. "You okay, Mikasa?" 

"I'm fine." She managed to scrape by without any injuries, which she attributes to pure luck.

Armin nods and replaces the contents of their first aid pack, swinging it back onto his shoulders and standing up. He shakes water from his hair and then lassos it back up in a rubber band. "Let's get moving." 

They decide to stay out of the water, for fear of what the coyote blood might attract, and stick to the roofs of half-submerged cars and trucks, once climbing onto a bus and using it as a bridge across a particularly deep intersection. They hit the border of Sector 9 and enter it without much trouble. 

"God damn, this place is de-serted," Eren says, stretching out the first syllable. He whistles.

"They don't call it Ground Zero for nothing."

* * *

The further they go into Sector 9, the more they dislike it---it's absolutely eerie. The water in the streets subsides, and as they begin to walk normally again, they take in their surroundings. Everything seems to be frozen in time---the cars are parked against curbs neatly, the doors of buildings all shut nicely. The only indicators of anything out of the ordinary are the windows---they're all broken from the force of the blast---and the sheer emptiness of the place. 

"It almost feels like nothing happened," Armin breathes, taking it all in. "Like there were never nukes here." 

Eren nods his agreement. "You can pretend there's nothing wrong around here. Pretend everyone isn't dead." 

"I wouldn't pretend anything," Mikasa says ominously, stopping in the middle of the street. 

"What's up?" 

The meter that monitors radiation levels starts beeping erratically from where it's clipped to a strap that circles her thigh; she bends over to check the meter, and swears. "This place is cooking. Gas masks on." 

They unhook the gas masks that hang from their belts and ease them on, taking careful breaths of filtered air before continuing on. Through the lenses of the mask, the deceptive normalcy of the sector disappears, and everything seems creepier to them than it was before. Eren gets jumpy before long. 

"We should just beat it," he suggests, his head turning this way and that nervously. "There's no one still breathing out here. With radiation levels this high, we're only going to find Titans and corpses." 

"We're following orders. Keep your nose down and we'll get home just fine," Mikasa says, one eye on the meter, noting that the farther they walk, the stronger the radiation becomes. "Levels are getting higher. Be careful." 

They stick to the sidewalk, following the grayish path through the sector with no destination in mind. Mikasa tries to hold onto the half-hope that somehow, improbably, _someone_ is out here, but it's implausible. Anyone caught out here without a gas mask would be immediately exposed to heavy radiation and, in all likelihood, turn into a Titan. This is no man's land. 

"Maybe we should head back." Even Armin is hesitant to go further.

She frowns, but can't disagree; their presence here is pointless. "Let's turn this corner, circle around the block, then go back home." 

"Good," Eren sighs, hooking his rifle on its strap and letting it hang easily. He laces his hands behind his head and yawns. "One more street." They turn the corner as planned. 

They stop in synchronization. Eren's hands fall to his sides.

"What the _fuck_ is that?" 

"It's a truck," Mikasa mouths, but no sound comes out. It's not just some abandoned truck---it's _running_. The engine is humming, a sound she hasn't heard in years. Parked diagonally in the middle of the street, the logo on the side of the flat black door makes her take a half-step back---it's the White House seal. An eagle clutching two branches. 

"That's not just any truck," Armin whispers. 

Eren's jaw is threatening to hit the pavement. "What the hell is the government doing in Sector 9---" 

They're too busy ogling the truck to notice the apartment building it's parked in front of---Mikasa turns her attention to it just as the front door of the building opens and three men in white hazmat suits step outside. Thinking fast, she grabs Eren and Armin by the straps across their shoulder blades and wrenches them out of sight, crouching behind the nearest car.

"What the hell? Why did you---" 

"Shut up." She peers through the windows of the car and watches the men get into the truck. "I have a bad feeling about this." 

The truck stays in place. Armin sneaks a glance, then ducks back down. "It's not moving. Why aren't they moving?" 

"Give it a second---" she advises, but stops when she hears the truck's doors open. She drops onto the sidewalk and scans what she can see of the street from under the car, feeling her pulse start to race as white boots start towards them. 

"Shit," she mutters, getting on all fours. "Shit, shit, shit." 

One of the government men calls out. "We see you back there. Who are you? Why are you in this sector?" 

"Just stand up," she whispers. The three get to their feet and come out from behind the car, holding their weapons awkwardly---they can't exactly point guns at government men, who are probably powerful enough to have them discharged or even killed, if they so choose. 

"Soldiers?" the front man says. His face is obscured by his hazmat mask, but his head tilts to the side, belying confusion. "What are you doing this far from your base?"

"We were told to patrol this area," Mikasa informs them, tightening her grip on her rifle. "Orders from our commanding officers, sir." 

The man glances at one of his colleagues, then back at Red Arrow. "Who's in charge over there?" 

"General Erwin Smith, sir." 

He leans over and says something under his breath, to which the other man nods sharply. "Well, I'll tell you what. How about you three run along to your base and not mention any of this to anyone there, especially your big bad general, alright? Wouldn't want any of you to get in trouble, now, would we?" 

Mikasa shares a look with Armin, whose face is screwed up in concentration, and then at Eren, who just looks angry. Something is deeply wrong here, but she really has no choice but to nod her consent. "We'll keep this to ourselves, sir." 

"That's the spirit." The men begin backing towards their truck. "Thank you for your service to our country." 

So, not knowing what to do, they snap their best salutes.

* * *

They keep quiet all the way back to HQ, but by the time they make it there, they can't maintain the silence between them anymore. Once they've made sure it's empty, the three slip into an empty classroom on the second floor. Eren begins pacing immediately, eyebrows furrowed so hard they look fit to stick that way. Armin sits on the edge of the teacher's desk, his eyes flicking back and forth as if trying to read something invisible. Mikasa stands at the window and watches soldiers cross the darkened lawn. 

"What the _fuck_ did we see out there?" Eren half-yells, before realizing the severity of the subject matter and clamping down on his volume. 

"Either they're looking for something, or they're studying something." Armin scoots back farther onto the desk, swinging his legs in thought. "In any case, it's important. Top secret enough that even General Smith doesn't know about it." 

Mikasa turns to face them, crossing her arms across her chest. "We found them at Ground Zero. That has top secret written all over it---the first nukes, the first Titans, radiation through the roof." 

"Maybe they're researching a cure for the Titan disease," Eren suggests, stopping in his tracks and perking up eagerly. 

"I don't think so," Armin disagrees. "White House scientists send all of their findings to military bases across the country, hoping that someone will find a cure. I've seen the reports in Dr. Zoë's office." 

She glances out the window again, tracing the progress of twilight's transition into night. "Then they're not studying a cure. They're probably not studying Titans, either---they weren't wearing 3DMG or anything to defend themselves." 

"I think they're looking for something out there," Armin hypothesizes. "We saw them come out of a building. They were probably searching all of the buildings on that street before we showed up."

"Question is, what are they looking for?" Eren says.

* * *

Mikasa puts any suspicions of government conspiracies aside and focuses on their last task of the night. She and Eren are assigned to watch the gate for the first shift of the night---in other words, three hours standing around outside and making sure no one comes near the base. Armin is lucky enough to turn in early.

After a short dinner, Mikasa and Eren head across the lawn. Eren unlocks the front gate, opens it wide enough for them to pass through, then locks it again, stuffing the key out of sight. They lean back against the chain links and watch the moon climb a little higher, knowing full well that no one is stupid enough to march up to a military base and attack. 

"No one attacks from the front," Eren grumbles, sinking to the ground and resting his back against the fence. "If I wanted to sneak in here, I'd go through the back." 

"Well, I guess it's a good thing you're not trying to sneak in," she says, rolling her eyes. 

Before he can reply, figures appear out of the darkness---familiar faces. Jean leads, flanked by his squad members Marco and Christa. 

"What are you doing back, Kirschtein?" Eren gets to his feet, ready to sneer at his usual rival-in-waiting. "Aren't you supposed to be on night watch? Couldn't take the heat, huh?" 

"Shut the hell up, Jaeger!" Jean barks back, and that's when they realize something is very, very wrong.

She immediately notices that their horses are missing. In addition to that, Marco has his arm around Jean's shoulders, limping along and placing all of his weight on his squad leader. Christa, just behind them, has blood all over her hands; not her blood, Mikasa determines. Marco's. The freckled boy has a hand pressed to the spot where his shoulder slopes up to meet his neck, stained crimson. 

"We need to get in there, _now_!" Jean orders. Eren shuts his mouth for once and opens the gate, then pushes the key into Mikasa's hand. He goes to Marco's other side and helps him along, up the path to the school. In the dark, they look like one person, not three---a strange, undulating mass. 

Christa looks horribly shaken, stumbling every other step as she starts to follow. Mikasa puts her hand out and stops her. "Christa, it's fine. Jean and Eren will take care of them. You don't look good---here, sit down." 

She helps the shivering blonde sit cross-legged against the fence, then crouches down in front of her, keeping her face as blank as possible. "Tell me what happened." 

"They came out of nowhere," she says, her wide blue eyes fixed on the pavement. She seems to snap out of it, looking up at Mikasa with sudden knowing. "Russians." 

The last word she wants to hear. "Go on." 

"We weren't far from the base," Christa says, putting her head in one hand. "We expected maybe a civilian ambush at the worst. Nothing we couldn't handle. But then we heard dogs barking around the corner, and Jean said, 'Let's stop. I don't like that.' But Marco wanted to go ahead anyway. He said it was our job to investigate. They got off their horses, started arguing about it. And then . . . it was so fast. One of the dogs came flying around the corner and jumped on Marco. That's how he got hurt. It tried to tear his throat out, but it missed by a few inches." 

She makes eye contact again, face somber. "He managed to throw the dog off. Jean shot it. He was freaked out---he wanted to get out of there. But their horses were scared off by the dogs. I told him to get on my horse, but another dog came running around the corner and bit my horse's front leg. I jumped off right before it went crazy. Jean shot this dog, too, but by then all the noise had attracted the Russians." 

"How many?" Mikasa wants to ask specifically about the spy she saved, but forces herself to put the thought from her mind.

Christa shudders. "I'm not sure. Six or seven, maybe. Some of them started laughing when they saw us---Marco was holding his wound and lying on the street, Jean and I probably looked terrified. We definitely didn't look like U.S. Army soldiers." She says the last bit with a hint of shame.

"You were caught by surprise," Mikasa reminds her. "Outgunned and outnumbered. Don't beat yourself up." 

"You're right." Christa draws her knees to her chest and leans her head back. "Anyway. They had us surrounded. They made us hand our guns over, and emptied our blade carriers. I thought they were going to shoot us right there." 

"But they didn't." 

"They didn't," she sighs. "That's something to be grateful for, I suppose. Their leader started asking us questions. He wanted to know where our base was, but it was weird---he knew the address already. He was just confirming, I guess. Then he asked what General Smith is planning, but we honestly didn't know. He wanted to know if we had communication with the White House; we told him that we did, but it was infrequent." 

"How'd you get away?" 

"He wanted to shoot us," she says, closing her eyes. "He was about to, when two of his soldiers told him it wasn't worth it. Another one nodded when they started protesting. So the leader just put his hands up and walked away, and his soldiers followed. They took the dogs with them. Jean helped Marco up and started hauling butt back home; he was scared that civilians would ambush us while we were unarmed and injured, so I kicked the exhaust pipe off a car and held onto it. In case anyone came after us, I mean." 

"Are you alright?" She scans Christa for injuries, but the girl seems relatively unscathed. 

"I'm okay. Two guys with baseball bats tried to jump us, but I hit him with the pipe, and Jean knocked the other one out. Then we got back to base and, well, you know the rest." 

Mikasa stands, disturbed by the revelations of the night, and holds her hand out. "Can you walk?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." She takes the offered hand and gets to her feet. "Need something?" 

"Go tell one of the commanders about what happened, and send backup out here. I have a bad feeling about all of this." 

Christa nods her understanding and runs off in the direction of the main building. Mikasa checks that her weapon is loaded and shifts her weight uneasily, suddenly wary of attack. It would be bold of the Russians to mount an offensive push after roughing up a band of Americans, but not impossible. She realizes how exposed she is---alone, on the other side of a locked gate, with no one to watch her back. 

Pretty soon backup arrives in the form of a sleep-addled Armin and Connie, whose eyes dart around as if expecting ambush from all sides. She unlocks the gate for them to slip through and then locks it tight again. 

Connie paces with his rifle in a death grip. "You really think they'd attack us here? That's suicide, right?" 

"Don't underestimate them," is all Mikasa can tell him, standing statue-esque by the gate.

Armin threads his fingers in the chain links and scans the night sky, as if the Russians are going to drop from it like rain. "They're pretty bold, attacking U.S. soldiers on their home turf. General Smith is going to want to put a stop to this, and soon." 

"Good! I can't wait to get my hands on those bastards---" 

"Keep your voice down." Mikasa fixes Connie with an icy look. "Do you want them to know we're standing around like sitting ducks?" 

"Sitting ducks my ass," Connie says, albeit quietly. "We could take them. Just gotta be ready. They won't have the element of surprise next time, hell no." 

Armin, uneasy, hushes them. "Don't argue, okay? That's how they sneaked up on Jean's squad. Let's not give them the opportunity to sneak up again." 

A new voice calls down to them. "Arlert! Springer! Ackerman!" 

They turn to see Captain Levi striding down to meet them. He speaks without waiting for Mikasa to open the gate, his face obscured by the chain links. "Listen. We're putting the base in lockdown. General Smith doesn't want anyone in or out until we have a better plan to deal with the enemy. Now get inside, and make sure you lock up tight."

"Yes, sir," they say in unison, nodding their understanding. Mikasa removes the key from her pocket. A faint sound---faint, but nothing short of terrifying---reaches them. A bark. Several barks.

"What the hell . . . ," Levi mutters, then his eyes go wide. "Get inside _now_." 

"Sir---"

 _"Now, goddammit!"_

She fits the key in her lock, her hand starting to shake when she hears the thud of paws on pavement and, just under that, several pairs of footsteps.

"Target in sight!" Connie yells from behind her, and her blood starts to run cold. She twists the key and yanks the lock down. Levi muscles the gate open while she chances a look behind her---several massive Rottweilers are charging at them. At the end of the street, the owners of the dogs stand silent: Russians, dressed in white-gray camouflage that stands out brightly in the darkened street. 

"Move your asses," Levi snaps, curling his fist in her collar and hauling her through the gate. Connie is close behind, backing through the opening while firing a few fatal shots at the onslaught of beasts, and Armin is last to enter, barely avoiding a dog tearing off his ankle. The four of them retreat from the gate at a near sprint. 

Inside the main building, Levi sends them away and walks briskly away in the direction of General Smith's office. Mikasa follows persistently. "Are we just going to leave them alone out there? Sir, we should be mounting a counter defensive---"

"You sound like Jaeger," he mutters, moving surprisingly fast for someone with such short legs. "I've already radioed all the squads currently in the field to watch their backs out there, and we've got a few soldiers patrolling the lawns right now. They'll radio in if the Russians find a way through the perimeter. Now I need to confer with the general. I _also_ need you to stay out of the way and try not to bring home any dying Russian spies in the meantime." 

The parting jab is enough to get her to leave him to his work. While awaiting the outcome of the meeting, she decides to check on Marco in one of the medic rooms at the end of the hall. 

A doctor is just leaving when she enters the room. Jean is sitting in the chair by Marco's cot, chin on his fists, elbows on his knees. Eren leans against a counter with his arms crossed tightly. At her arrival, his face brightens. "What are you doing back? Who's watching the gate?" 

She recounts the Russian encounter and Levi's course of action. Jean looks up when she finishes, his expression dark and his eyes stormy. "Those bastards. I should go out there and give them a little of what they deserve." 

"For once, I agree with you," Eren says, quirking his eyebrow up at the strange situation. 

"We're in lockdown," Mikasa reminds them. "No one steps foot outside this building. How's Marco?" 

"Doc says it's hairy, but he should pull through," Jean informs her, sighing heavily. "Says it's a good thing he pushed the dog off. The thing could have torn him in half if it wanted to." 

Mikasa looks over Marco's unconscious form, then turns her gaze away just as quickly, remembering the Russian spy in the same position. "He'll make it. I'm sure of it." 

"Regardless, I really, really want to get my hands on those European fucks."


	5. white winter

Nearly four hours after the Russians attack, she receives briefing from the office.

.

RED ARROW

ORIGINAL ORDERS  
Urban Battalion 1  
Department of Mission Control

From: General Erwin Smith  
To: Specialists Mikasa Ackerman, Armin Arlert, and Eren Jaeger

Subj: OPERATION WHITE WINTER, ORDERS FOR  
Ref: 7GPIDP, ALPHA CO

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: LOCATE AND DESTROY RUSSIAN SUBMARINES 

1\. In accordance with the reference, you will proceed and report to Captain Levi Ackerman at 01:30. You will already have filled your gas tanks, replaced any dull blades in your carriers, and replenished ammunition in your rifles. 

2\. Your duties will include, but not be limited to, eliminating any and all Russian soldiers you come across, identifying and destroying any Russian technology you find, assisting in the primary objective of destroying Russian submarines, aiding fellow U.S. soldiers when possible, and avoiding conflict with Titans if at all possible.

3\. Authorized equipment for this mission: Three-Dimensional Maneuver Gear, M16A1 rifles, M16A1 ammunition, military grade gas masks. 

4\. You will receive further instruction from Captain Ackerman. 

Signed, General Erwin Smith  
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED

.

"What time do you have?" she asks Eren, who, as always, has his father's battered watch on his wrist.

"It's almost one in the morning," he says, wrinkling his nose. "Only got half an hour to get ready." 

She gets to her feet. The cafeteria at this time is quiet and empty but for them. "Let's get a move on then." 

They leave and head down to the outbuilding where equipment is stored, going through the meticulous process of strapping on the 3DMG, checking that all blades are sharpened, and confirming that gas levels are maximum. They jam new clips into their rifles and then don belts that crisscross their chests, loaded down with fresh magazines. By the time they're done, they have to hurry to make it back and find Levi on time. 

He's leaning against the hallway wall when they burst into the main building, staring blankly at the ceiling. He acts as if they aren't about to embark on a mission of immense scope. When he catches sight of Red Arrow, his thin eyebrows quirk up. 

"Thanks for barely being on time, Specialists," he drawls, pushing off from the wall and strolling over to them. 

"We're ready to go," Mikasa says flatly, matching Levi's apathy with her own.

"I should hope so. Now I advise you to leave any bitch baby tears here, because I'm leading you shits into battle today and I don't accept toddlers." Levi doesn't generally like being in charge of a squad; he's used to flying solo, so they understand his reluctance to become their leader. His biting sarcasm has a bit more teeth today. "You've read the briefing, you know what we're after. Don't make me spell anything out for you. And keep up, I don't like waiting around." 

Before they can respond, he slips past them, out the door, and begins striding in the direction of the fence. They scurry after him. Out of breath, Armin asks, "Captain, aren't the Russians still around the perimeter? How do you plan to evade them?" 

"We're using stealth and 3DMG, Arlert," Levi answers, not slowing. "When I give the signal, you scale the fence and grapple onto the building across the road. If you're seen, we're leaving you behind." 

With that ultimatum in mind, they stick closer to the captain, who finally stops as the fence looms closer. He motions for them to hit the deck; they comply, dropping to their stomachs in the damp grass and watching the road through the holes in the chain links. Levi edges forward, freezing when they see it---a pair of Russian soldiers on the other side of the street, moving slowly, keeping close to the shadows thrown by the buildings. Subtle. Hard to see even from this distance.

"Stupid shitheads," Levi mutters. The Russians amble around the corner, and he springs to his feet. "Now." 

Mikasa's always been good with orders; they're easy. Just do what you're told. Don't think about it. So she's close on Levi's heels when he starts sprinting towards the fence. She climbs to the top without breaking a sweat, perches there for a moment, then squeezes the triggers on her operating devices. Anchors whip out and tunnel into the face of the building across the way. She thumbs the buttons on each device, propelling herself in that direction with the help of the gas tank, and rolls to a stop on the building's roof. 

Eren and Armin arrive just after her; Levi arrives just before. They creep away from the edge, safe in the middle of the roof, and look to Levi expectantly.

"We're heading to the harbor," he says, looking over there heads at something. "Sweeping the Hudson for submarines. But don't get comfortable. We don't know what's out there. Could be Russians, could be Titans, could be something worse. Don't get killed out there. It's a lot of goddamn paperwork for me." 

And he turns, runs, and throws himself off the roof. The members of Red Arrow follow as best as they can; Levi is an innovator in the usage of 3DMG, exhibiting complicated and difficult moves with the ease of a sheer genius. Mikasa doesn't struggle much---operating the gear has always come easy to her. Judging by his frustrated grunts, Eren is fighting to keep up. Armin keeps as close as he can.

On the way, she coaches herself. Realistically, the chance of her seeing _that_ Russian spy is dramatically increased, and she reminds herself that she took an oath. She swore her life to her country and her superiors; if they tell her to kill some goddamn Russian, she's going to kill that goddamn Russian, even if she did risk life and limb to save the life and limb of said Russian. 

She can do it. She's done it before. Killed, maimed, crippled. All those horrible things your mother warns you about, she's done them. Stood on the right side of the gun, held the knife that made the cut. Killing hasn't bothered her in a long, long time. 

And it's really pissing her off that it's starting _now_.

* * *

"Why," Eren pants, "are we stopping?" 

"Breathe, idiot." Levi walks to the edge of the roof they've paused on, putting one boot up against the lip of the building and leaning his arm down on his thigh. His hard gray eyes are everywhere. "If we go any farther on 3DMG we'll be shot out of the sky." 

"Going on foot?" Armin asks, hands on his knees as he catches his breath. 

"Bingo," the captain yawns, climbing lithely to the edge of the roof. It's a three story drop. "We stay quiet, we stay invisible. If anyone sees you, you'd better shut them up fast." 

He steps off the edge of the roof then, this time not employing his 3DMG until he reaches the bottom, using a spurt of gas to break the fall and allowing him to land lightly in a crouch. The younger soldiers imitate him. In the alley between the buildings, they plaster themselves to one wall and creep closer to the road. Levi sneaks a look around the corner and signals for them to follow.

"Holy crap," Eren says. "Is that Central Park?" 

"Used to be," Levi answers. "Now shut up and move." 

They stick close to the buildings until the buildings are no more; only Central Park's remains stand before them now, overgrown and tangled, unkempt and wild. The trim trees of her childhood are gnarled and twisted with lack of care; animals dash through fallen leaves and jump between branches. 

"It's like a jungle in the middle of the city," Armin says.

"Don't sound so scared, Arlert. We're passing right through, no troubles." 

Levi leads them into the thick vegetation of Central Park without hesitating. He uses his blades as machetes, whacking particularly obtrusive plants out of the way as he goes. He talks, too, more to himself than them, but it relaxes them all the same.

"Fucking bullshit, that's what this park is. Too goddamn big for its worth. Full of filthy mongrels and so much _dirt_." 

Mikasa tries to find the old Central Park under the dusky cloak it wears now. She remembers her mother taking her there as a child, taking two subway trains and a bus to get there from their home in Brooklyn, trying to catch butterflies while her mother rested on a bench and smiled warmly. 

There are no benches now, just metal skeletons rising up out of the soft ground, their wooden seats long worn away, their frames crumbling under choking vines. Mikasa stops looking for the old Central Park after that.

For all of its eeriness, the park feels much safer than the streets. In the dense shadows of the new growths, their black uniforms blend everywhere. The wintry uniform of a Russian soldier would stand out here like a flare, bright against the shady trees, and mark them an easy target. She wouldn't mind an easy target right about now. 

As they cross through a stream of ankle-deep muddy water, Levi pushes a little ahead and beckons her closer. She catches up to him and looks back briefly, making sure that Eren and Armin are absorbed in their task. 

"Are you ready for this?" he asks, quiet enough for only her ears. 

"I'm always ready for a fight, sir." 

"Sometimes we go to war and we don't do much fighting at all, Ackerman. Remember that."

* * *

They make it through Central Park largely unscathed. It's just a few more blocks now to the Hudson River, the place where Erwin Smith suspects the Russian submarines are docked. 

"This is where shit wants to hit the fan," Levi tells them. He and Red Arrow squat behind the untrimmed bushes on the edge of Central Park's border, watching the deceptively quiet streets unfold before them. "You don't see them, but the Russians are there." 

"Where?" Eren whispers, craning his neck. 

"That's the point, dumbass," Levi groans, rolling his eyes. "You can't see them. And if you're not careful, you won't see them until they're sticking a knife in your back." 

"It's too quiet," Eren mutters, chastised. 

"Of course it is." Levi sits back on his haunches, wiping the flat of his blade on the clean grass absently. "Do you know how many of _our_ soldiers are sneaking around here, Jaeger?" 

"How many, sir?"

"I couldn't care to find out the exact number, but to give you a good idea of how many U.S. Army soldiers are running around tonight, I'll tell you that General Smith ordered all able-bodied men and women to be assigned to this mission. So, it's a lot of people, in case you didn't catch that." 

Eren shakes his head in confusion. "How are they getting around? I don't see anyone." 

"You're not looking in the right places," Mikasa says to herself, but her squad mates follow her gaze anyway, gasping when they see what she sees---a tiny, hard to place movement on the roofs to the northwest. Someone in light clothing paces in view for half a second before backing away from their line of sight again. 

"That's more like it." Levi slinks forward. "It's not about finding the enemy, Jaeger, it's about making sure the enemy doesn't find you." 

"How are we gonna do that?" 

Levi points a slim finger towards the middle of the street. The three are confused momentarily---walking into the center of a wide avenue isn't exactly a study in stealth. They see what Levi is gesturing to a moment later: a manhole covered by a rusty iron lid. 

"The sewers?" Armin theorizes. 

"Point to Arlert," the captain murmurs, scanning the rooftops around them. "Here's the idea. I see two guards right now---one of the roof to the northwest, and one on the roof to the southwest. I'm taking down the northern one. Arlert, you take the southern one. Do it fast, do it quiet. Ackerman, as soon as the guards are out of the way, you run like hell, get the cover off the manhole. Jaeger, stand watch. You know the calls if anything goes wrong." 

They nod their understanding of the plan. Armin and Levi creep away in different directions, dashing across the street when the guards are turned away. She watches Levi nearly slingshot himself up the edge of the building, getting his anchors in near the upper levels of the stone structure and using the gas to propel himself up. He retracts the cables mid-air, still sailing upwards, and grabs the edge of the roof with both hands. A moment later, he shimmies up. 

Armin is crawling over the lip of the other roof when she turns to look. There's a short, heart-squeezing moment where she can't see them anymore, and fears the worst; but soon Levi is standing on the edge of the roof with blood dripping from one blade, and a moment later a solemn Armin appears in view, his blade bloodied as well. 

She runs. The manhole gapes before her. She hits the ground hard on both knees and digs her fingers under the edge of the iron cover, pulling upward with all of her strength, gritting her teeth when rust flakes fly and the cover begins to lift, slowly. She puts all of her muscle behind it. The cover rips free suddenly, and she nearly drops it on the street; thankfully, she catches it before it gives them all away, and she scoots over and drops into the hole without looking up again.

A concrete tube rushes past her as she falls. She lands on the balls of her feet, absorbing the shock of impact expertly. The tunnel around her is pitch black save for the halo of light from outside. 

She moves away from the hole just as a body falls through---Eren, out of breath. She tugs him out of the way as Armin joins them, and then Levi. Flashlights burst to life on their rifles, sweeping the sewer tunnel they've claimed carefully. They see a rancid stream of sewage passing parallel to their platform, but nothing bursts out of the corners of their vision with fangs bared. No enemies show themselves in the pitch darkness.

Levi turns and walks down the platform, rifle up to keep the path illuminated. "Just as I thought. They didn't think to come down here, the idiots." He looks back at his soldiers, expression unreadable. "Stick close. We don't know what's down here."

They don't ask how Levi knows how to maneuver the tunnels; they just follow him blindly, obeying when he directs them around a bend or through waist-deep sludge. The sewers seem frozen; nothing moves but them, nothing makes a sound but them. It puts Mikasa on edge immediately. The saying _the calm before the storm_ comes to her, but she doesn't voice her concerns. 

"Filthy," Levi says under his breath, as they climb over a heap of congealed garbage. 

"How much farther?" Eren coughs from behind her.

"Not far," the captain calls back. "Another block maybe. Then we'll come up right around the river."

"And what happens then? How are we supposed to find a submarine in the Hudson?"

Levi sighs, as if their questions tire him, but he answers nonetheless. "We're not the only team on this mission, Arlert, I already explained that. We're linking up with our people once we get topside. They have the tech we need to comb the river, and if we do find a sub, they'll have the firepower we need to destroy it." 

"You really think we'll find their subs?"

"I damn well hope so."

* * *

Levi stops seemingly without warning, craning his neck to look at the ceiling of the tunnel. They imitate him and see a ladder nailed into the stone wall, leading up to another manhole. 

"That for us?" Eren asks, gesturing to the cover.

"Indeed." Levi climbs a few rungs up the ladder and rests a hand on the cover, pushing upward to see if it gives easily. It doesn't.

Armin inspects the situation carefully. "How do we get out without anyone seeing us?"

"We move fast and cross our fingers," Levi answers. He grabs his rifle and flips it upside down, then slams the butt of the gun against the cover, breaking it free of the thick layer of rust that glues it in place. "When I get the cover up, you run." 

He doesn't wait to see if they understand. He strikes the cover again, this time with full force, and this time, the iron plate flips off the manhole and out of sight. Moonlight floods the tunnel. Levi nods to them shortly before climbing through the hole and out of sight; the younger soldiers clamber to follow. 

She doesn't waste precious time scanning the road when she makes it onto street level. Once she catches sight of Levi dashing into the shadows next to a ransacked bank, she takes off at a sprint, praying that some Russian patrol isn't turning the corner right now. In the safety of the alley, she turns to watch Armin, then finally Eren burst onto the street and bolt in their direction.

"Everyone still breathing?" Levi takes stock of them, peering out at the street again. 

"Still breathing."

"Good," he says, turning back to them. "We're meeting up with the other squads over here." 

He moves farther down the alley. At its end, he takes a thorough look and then signals for them to follow. They dart across the street on his heels. Levi dives through the window of a long, flat building; some kind of factory or processing center. This close to the river, she can smell the thick concentration of fresh water in the air, and remembers a time before the attacks when the Hudson River was a hub of fisheries and seafood markets.

They follow his lead and launch themselves through the window, avoiding the sharp spears of glass around its edges. They surface in a seemingly empty concrete room. A breath she was barely aware of holding escapes her in relief when she takes in the sight of fellow American soldiers milling around the large room, keeping watch at the windows and resting on the floor.

"Stay out of trouble," Levi tells them as he walks away, towards the general. "We're moving out again soon." 

They salute him, then join some familiar faces in the corner of the room: Connie, Sasha, Christa, and a sour-faced Jean. 

"How long are we going to sit on our asses?" Jean's saying when they arrive. "I want to get this over with." 

"Jesus, Jean, calm down," Connie soothes, stretching his quads. "Marco's going to be fine, okay? He's safe at the base. He'll be waiting for you when we get back." 

Jean crosses his arms. "Shut the hell up, Springer. That's my squad mate lying in a hospital bed, alright? We've been through a lot of shit since the academy, so don't ask me to calm down." 

Connie raises his hands in surrender and continues stretching. "All I'm saying is, we're not going anywhere until they say so. I think they're checking the sonar equipment they brought. Oh, and there's the bomb squad over there."

"Bomb squad?" Armin repeats, sitting cross-legged on the dusty floor. 

"Pretty much." Connie points to a group of older soldiers crouched around a shiny black case on the floor. The case is open, revealing a tangle of wires and the face of a timer. "It's their job to plant the bomb. That's if we find any submarines, anyway. Not sure if we will." 

"Let's be optimistic, okay?" Christa gets to her feet, brushing dust from her pants. "Maybe we can end all of our problems tonight." 

"Not Titans," Eren disagrees. "A bomb isn't going to get rid of _them_." 

"Another day, then," Christa says, shrugging and smiling simultaneously. 

Conversation stills when General Smith climbs atop some kind of dormant machine and raises his voice to be heard. "We're proceeding with the mission as planned, but I remind you to remain incognito at all times. The vanguard will depart first, followed by the explosives squad and the sonars, followed by the rear guard. We move up the river fast, we don't make noise, we don't get caught. Dawn isn't far. Let's move." 

Levi assigns squads to either the vanguard or the rear guard; Eren, Armin, and Mikasa are placed in the vanguard. This means that they're some of the first to leave the safety of the hideout building, which only bothers them momentarily. Of course, being the first to move into the line of fire is never ideal, but the excitement of leading a battalion into battle gets to all of them.

A senior officer coaches the vanguard, gathered around a row of windows---their method of exiting. "We're going to cross the highway to get to the river. Use the cars on the road to make sure you aren't seen, but remember your objective: If you see a Russian, you kill them, got it? You kill 'em before this whole operation goes to shit. And you don't get caught. Now move."

Mikasa sheathes her blades and vaults over the window sill, hitting the asphalt on the other side hard and running without pause. The sound of boots striking the ground around her assures her that her comrades are close, spurring her on. They slide down a slope of grass at full speed that borders the highway. Once they're on the road, the fear of discovery lessens---they're able to duck low and creep between the husks of abandoned cars, peering over trunks and hoods to see around them. On the other side of the highway, the Hudson River sloshes gently. 

Someone's whispering orders. "We've got a Russian patrol, eleven o'clock."

Her eyes immediately flick left, tagging a trio of white-clothed Russians moving leisurely between the cars, rifles held loosely in their hands. Their easy manner tells her that they're completely unaware of the Americans slinking through the shadows around them. 

The same friendly voice is reaching out between the cars. "Take them down. Be quiet about it---no rifles. Blades only." 

Mikasa watches a handful of American soldiers scurry in the direction of the Russians, disappearing in the clutter of automobiles. Moments later, the Russians fall in synchronization, never making a sound---she sees blood start to spread across the wintry uniforms just before they collapse. The Americans drag their bodies under the nearest cars and move on without causing a stir. 

Armin appears next to her, crouching beside an overturned taxi. "Where's the sonar crew? And the bomb squad?" 

Mikasa looks back the way they came, unsurprised by the lack of soldiers streaming from the building. "They must have gone another way. To keep everything quiet." 

"Probably," he agrees, edging away. 

Sure enough, a few minutes later, members of the explosive and sonar squads begin to appear down the road, carrying expensive equipment and darting off towards the river. They leave the safety of the highway and book it right to the bank of the great river, firing up strange devices and holding them close to the water, walking slowly down its length with their eyes glued to the sonars' monitors. 

Mikasa tears her eyes away and continues up the road. Her job is important---clearing the way for the specialists by the river, making sure no Russians happen upon their operation. She focuses on the highway, eyes peeled for white uniforms, ready to attack when the order is given. Eren and Armin, when they stray into her line of sight, are equally concentrated.

Eren prowls close a few yards later, pitching his voice low to keep them undercover. "Look at the sky."

"It's almost light out," she says, understanding what he's referring to. The inky blackness of night is gone, replaced by a deep ocean blue, but even that is fading fast. The horizon is already taking on a gold tinge, signaling the rising sun. 

"It sure as hell is." Eren's eyes are wide and intense. "Once day breaks, we're going to have a lot more to worry about than some fucking Russians." 

"Titans." They're both thinking it; she's courteous enough to say it. "We'd better hope we find those subs fast."

* * *

Twenty minutes later, an order to stop resonates from the sonar squad---they've found something. Their monitors blink rapidly, alerting them to the presence of possible Russian technology in the river, and exciting the soldiers; most of them had expected the search to turn up nothing. 

One of the senior officers in the vanguard barks orders as quietly as he can. "We're setting up a perimeter around the sonar and bomb squads. Nothing gets past us and fucks with them, understood? You keep everything away from them while they go down and plant the bomb." 

Mikasa peeks at the soldiers by the river, watching some of them put on scuba diving gear and ease into the murky water. A sliver of the sun is now visible to the east. Her skin starts to crawl, worry overtaking her; the chance of a firefight with the Russians, an altercation with Titans, looms like a storm. She silently urges them to plant the explosive quicker.

"They've been down there a while," Sasha says, inching closer to her. "How long does it take to plant a bomb?" 

"Not this long," Connie answers, not far behind her. "Something's up."

"Just focus on the road," Mikasa tells them, but even she's nervous about how exposed the whole operation is.

Morning is inevitably upon them; the divers still haven't surfaced. Distantly, very distantly, they hear the footsteps of giants---Titans waking. Even senior officers get antsy when they hear Titan presence; they start to bark orders and look back at the sonar squad periodically. 

"Sir, how much longer?" one of them shouts to Captain Levi, who stands near the river with both blades in hand. "The Titans could be coming this way." 

"We give them as much time as they need to plant the bomb." But his eyes turn back to the city, the impending threat of the Titans. Russians seem to be the farthest thing from the soldiers' minds. "Just keep your noses clean." 

Ominous footsteps ring from between the buildings. Soldiers bristle, readying blades and sinking into crouching positions.

"Think positive," Christ whispers from Mikasa's right, a mantra. Her hands shake every few seconds like clockwork. "Think positive. Think positive." 

Abruptly, terrifyingly, the footsteps stop altogether.

"Everything's going to be fine," a grizzled soldier says, kneeling near a beat-up sedan. He stands, scanning out past the river of cars, past the highway, back at the city. "Everything's going to be--- _SHIT_!"

Titans, Mikasa has learned, have a way of shattering stillness with breakneck speed; they've mastered the art of appearing seemingly from nowhere, without warning, which is impressive, when taking into account their massive size. 

"Enemy sighted!" the older soldier roars, leaping onto the back of a pick-up and raising his blades. "Protect the explosives squad! Defend the mission!" 

The tension is gone from Mikasa's muscles now, vanished with the arrival of the threat, and she's almost relieved when she springs out of her crouch and slides across the hood of a sports car, hitting the ground at a run and weaving between abandoned cars with reckless abandon. Other soldiers charge around her, screaming battle cries and obscenities, but she's always fancied herself a silent killer. 

She climbs the short stretch of grass back into the city proper, balking at the sight of the area---the Titans must have sensed the large congregation of U.S. soldiers out in the open, because they're positively swarming: Titans lope across streets freely, dragging their massive hands through windows and shooing out any glass that may have survived the city's strife. Soldiers stop in their tracks, faces contorted with total fear. 

"Stop fucking standing around," she hears Mike Zacharius yell, who passes her in a blur of black clothes and sandy hair. "Do your goddamn jobs!" 

She does. She analyzes the situation first---she's standing at one end of a wide, straight street; Titans are advancing from the other end. Simple. Text book. She takes a running start and grapples up to a gargoyle that juts from the upper levels of one of the buildings, releasing the hooks, kicking off the stone face of the building to get some height, and then falling in a fast spin, blades whirling. She hits her mark in a spray of dark red blood; the Titan barely looks up before the back of its neck is sliced to pieces. 

Her anchors are already digging into a building across from her by the time gravity catches up. She applies the fan mechanism to get her across, chopping through another Titan's neck on the way there, then rests against the building, re-evaluating. Soldiers twist and twirl everywhere, dropping from the sky when Titans bat them out of the air, screaming when their 3DMG isn't enough to save them.

She sees Eren streak by in a whirlwind of blades, hacking at Titans left and right. Farther back, Armin is rising and falling like the wind. Christa dances just out of the Titans' grasp; Connie jumps between buildings wildly; Sasha nose dives for a hundred feet before pulling out of it at breakneck speed. Her eyes rest on Jean longest, whose face is warped with rage---his mouth is always open in a roar that she can't hear. 

_We're overwhelmed,_ is all she can think, even as she takes down two Titans in one well-placed move, even as Mina and Sasha team up to decapitate a Titan in synchronization that astounds her. The Titans keep coming; the Americans keep falling. _We're overwhelmed._

This isn't how they planned things to go. They were supposed to find the submarine and destroy it; at worst, they'd get into a firefight with the Russians, one that they were confident they could win. Titans are a whole other obstacle. One that they hadn't fully anticipated. 

Screams reach her just after her blades sing through a Titan's nape---familiar screams. She catches sight of Armin, dangling over a Titan's open maw, the cables of his 3DMG grasped in the Titan's fingers. She's a good thirty yards away. Realistically, her chance of saving Armin before he's swallowed alive is slim to none, but that doesn't stop her from angling herself in that direction and shooting forward as fast as her gear will allow her. Wind whips at her, pushing her hair into her eyes, but the image of Armin hanging over certain death is already burned into her retinas. 

In her panic to save him, she doesn't register why she can hear Sasha and Eren calling out her name, or that something is coming towards her left side at a ferocious speed.

A hand. Attached to the arm of a large, leering Titan. 

In the tiny space between her seeing it and it hitting her, she has a few thoughts. First: the phrase _brace for impact_ is horse shit. You can't prepare for something like that. Second: she's made an absolutely elementary mistake and she's probably going to die because of it. Third: Armin is going to be eaten because of it. 

Impact, as she expected, is worse than she could have ever imagined. You never understand just how strong Titans are until one of them slaps you out of the sky.

The pain is obtrusive and all-encompassing---so massive, she can't remember a time when she wasn't feeling it. Everything tilts. Her vision blurs and the world spins around a hundred times a second; some part of her brain that isn't reeling from the collision reminds her that _she's_ the one spinning, not the world, but that part is silenced soon after.

Mikasa guesses that fate isn't as cruel as she's come to believe. If it was as vindictive as she's always thought, she probably would have been flattened against the front of a building, crushed and killed instantly; instead, she feels piercing jabs as she sails through a window, a shower of glass coming down on her as she hits solid wood floor and rolls from the momentum. The chaos of the street quiets. Shards skitters to a stop around her.

Not dead. But not far from dead, either.

Blood stings her eyes, seeping in from a cut on her forehead, and no amount of blinking gets it out. She tries to lift a hand to wipe it away---it gets halfway there before falling limply to her side. She rolls onto her back; slowly, the blood clears and her vision follows, and she stares at the swirling patterns of the ceiling above her, trying to categorize her injuries. It's no easy task. Everything hurts, and all of the pains bleed into each other and make one big pain, covering her like a blanket. 

"Get up," she mouths to herself, because her voice is too weary to find its way out.

Come on. Get up.

She tries. She pushes herself into an almost-sitting position on her elbows, but her head swims and she falls back to the hardwood with a groan. No way is she walking away from this. Desperately, she hopes that one of her comrades saw it and plans on swooping in after her any second; but minutes pass and nothing changes, and worry gnaws at her bruised stomach. She strains her ringing ears---no, that can't be right. She can't be hearing gunfire from out there. Guns are useless against Titans. Guns are only good for fighting people. And the only people around these parts are of the Russian variety. 

_Shit._

Glass crunches near the window. _Rescue_ , she thinks, leaning up on her elbows again. 

The figure by the window is not a savior. Familiar, yes, but definitely not a savior. 

"The tables have turned, I see," the Russian spy says. She takes a step forward, sweeping blonde hair out of her eyes casually. "It isn't so fun on the other end, is it?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was kind of delayed because of band stuff, my bad yo


	6. down memory lane

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> have another installment of hot girls w/ guns and swords

_The radios and television stations were all saying the same thing._

_**". . . the Department of Homeland Security is now confirming the approach of Russian nuclear strikes. All citizens are urged to seek shelter immediately. Repeat, all citizens should find shelter immediately. Underground shelters are ideal for protection from impact. Our radars predict that the missiles will reach us in twenty-five minutes. Repeat, missiles will make impact in twenty-five minutes."** _

_Mikasa sat with her arms curled around her knees, eyes wide, fixed on the living room television set. The cartoon she'd been watching was gone, replaced with big blocky letters running across the screen and a tinny voice that rang in her ears._

_"Mom?" she whispered. No response._

_She went to the window on her hands and knees and drew the curtain back, clenching her fingers around the fabric when the grisly sight reached her. The street she lived on looked like something out of a movie she wasn't old enough to see---people were rear-ending each other's cars and bowling over pedestrians in attempts to get away; those who didn't have cars ran, panicked, fought. Furniture sailed through windows, and an engine blew up on the corner in a mushroom of orange._

_White flakes rained down on the whole scene._

_That wasn't snow, she was sure. New York didn't snow in April._

_"Mom?" she repeated, putting the curtain back in place. She went to her mother's bedroom door and put a hand on the wood, bracing herself before twisting the knob and going inside._

_Her mother sat on the edge of her bed with her face in her hands, shoulders shaking, but as soon as the door opened she snapped upright, immediately putting on a practiced smile for her daughter. "Mikasa, what is it?"_

_Mikasa opened her mouth to speak, but her nine years on this earth weren't enough to explain fully what was being broadcast on TV, so she grabbed her mother's hand and tugged her back into the living room._

_**"Missiles will make impact in twenty minutes. Repeat, missiles will make impact in twenty minutes."** _

_Her mother's hand tightened around hers, and all of the color went out of her skin. The practiced smile withered._

_"Mom? What's wrong?"_

_"Mikasa, we have to_ go _!" Her mother took her elbow and dragged her along with her, all over the apartment; into the kitchen to make a phone call to Daddy, into the bedroom to shove clothes into a bag. When the voice on TV warned that the missiles were ten minutes away, the front door burst open and her father appeared._

_Her mother let go of her arm only now, gripping her father's shoulders. "Where do we go?"_

_"The building's basement," he replied, his eyes intense. His warm, weathered hands slid up and over hers, holding them to him. "It's our best bet. But we need to go right now."_

_"Mikasa, come on!" Her mother turned and took her hand, yanking her towards the door. Mikasa was thinking about the cross-stitching she and her mother had done yesterday, back in her room, but her parents' tones told her that she should leave it behind._

* * *

The spy is standing over her now. 

Mikasa analyzes. Her rifle's strap tore and the gun skittered across the room when she landed; one of her blade carriers is gone, and the other is bent nearly in half. Her operating devices are still attached, miraculously, but they lie out of reach, the blades long gone. In other words, she's defenseless.

The spy holds a rifle in one hand with its muzzle pointed lazily at her, icy blue eyes betraying no hint of mercy. "This is ironic." 

"Shoot," Mikasa spits, a dribble of blood spilling over her lip.

"Too easy," the spy replies, but she doesn't move the gun. "I want answers." 

Mikasa lets her head fall back, eyes closing. "Good luck . . . finding them." 

"I think you misunderstood me." The Russian crouches down, leaning closer.

"I understand completely," she says through her teeth, because every word feels like a punch in her already tender stomach. 

The Russian straightens up again. On the way up, Mikasa catches a name stitched to the front of her shirt--- _Leonhardt_. "No, I don't think you do. You answer my questions or you die. Slowly." 

"Fuck you---" she begins, but the rest of her sentence canters into a scream as the spy slams the heel of her boot into Mikasa's thigh. The femur must be bruised or fractured, she decides, because the pain is excruciating and she has to suck ragged breaths in and out to keep from screaming again. 

"What was that?" The spy turns her head to the side curiously, as if Mikasa's reaction was equal parts unexpected and interesting. "I couldn't quite catch that first part." 

"Fuck. You," Mikasa tries again, this time rewarded by a kick to her undoubtedly broken ribs.

Leonhardt watches her expressionlessly. "You don't get how this works, do you?" 

Before Mikasa can muster a snappy answer, the radio on the spy's belt starts streaming in thick Russian. _"храбрец, каково ваше положение?"_

She brings the radio to her lips without moving her eyes from Mikasa's. "Я слежу американцев тесно. Я сообщу больше, если я захватить один."

_"Понял."_

"Where were we?" Leonhardt muses, clipping the radio back in place. "Right. I remember." She drives the toe of her boot into Mikasa's ribs again. 

"What, the hell," she pants, fingers trembling over her rib cage, "do, you want?" 

Leonhardt kneels down and seizes Mikasa's jaw in her slim fingers, forcing eye contact. "I want to know why you did it." 

"What are you . . . talking about?" 

"Why did you save my life?"

* * *

_They spent two full days in the basement of their building, packed in between their terrified neighbors, waiting for the Wyatts' radio to pick up signal and tell them when they'd be safe to go upstairs._

_Mikasa didn't sleep. Her parents did---not easily, and not for long, but they did. She envied it. Every time she closed her eyes, she remembered the horrific moment of impact, huddled in the dark, and the feeling of the whole world shaking. The screams of the building's other residents and her own screams, muffled in her father's shirt. The smell of fear (or, rather, the smell of sweat and the sharp scent of urine from one of the toddlers who lived on the third floor) was everywhere._

_That was two days ago, but it felt ongoing, like the missiles were still hitting their city, like dust was still raining from the water-stained ceiling and coating the horrified people. So she didn't sleep. She watched. She waited. And she listened._

_Salvation didn't come from the Wyatts' radio. It came in the form of footsteps on the basement stairs, catching everyone off guard. Two soldiers in green army fatigues pointed their flashlights around the room from where they stood on the stairs, their flashlights arcing from one shell-shocked face to another, until one of the soldiers turned and shouted something to someone above._

_Mikasa can't remember what he said exactly, but she does remember her father putting her on his back piggy-back-style and holding her mother's hand tightly as the soldiers began directing people upstairs. They followed the flow of their neighbors back into the lobby of their building._

_(It must have been a gruesome sight, because her father brought his free hand up behind him to cover her eyes. She didn't try to stop him.)_

* * *

"Why the hell does it matter?" Mikasa snarls, trying to inject as much fight into her voice as her exhausted body will allow. 

The Russian's nails dig into her jawline, threaten to tear the skin from the bone. "My job is to kill people like you. And yours is to kill people like me. I want to know why you didn't do what you were supposed to." 

She isn't interested in schooling the spy on her tragic past---tragedy brought on by the spy's country, in fact---because even with that back story in mind, her reasons for saving Leonhardt's life are still flimsy and hard to understand. She narrows her eyes at the Russian. "It felt right at the time. Shouldn't you be thanking me?" 

_"No,"_ the Russian growls, a flash of anger dominating her formerly collected features. "You should have left me to die." 

Mikasa wonders if she's hearing correctly, if maybe she hit her head harder than she originally thought. Because this simply doesn't add up in her mind: Russians like to kill Americans. Here is a Russian, lording over a helpless American, and instead of putting a bullet in her head or grilling her on what the Americans' plans are, this Russian demands to know why she's still breathing. 

"You shouldn't want to die," Mikasa tells her. Her neck is starting to hurt. Leonhardt is holding her head up slightly, putting strain on her spine. "You should always want to live. Always." 

"Don't tell me how to live my life." She jerks her hand; the back of Mikasa's head strikes the hardwood floor, throwing stars in front of her eyes.

"I gave you that life," she mumbles, blinking disorientation from her vision. 

"Excuse me?" 

She doesn't care to repeat herself. Nor does she care to suffer any more abuse at the Russian's hand. "Just kill me if that's what you're aiming at, or leave me alone. I don't have anything else to say to you." 

Leonhardt draws her hand back and stands, her eyelids lowered with distaste. "What happened to always wanting to live?" 

"Sometimes what you want isn't realistic." 

_You're having a civilized conversation with a Russian soldier, Ackerman. You've lost it._

"You're stronger than I thought," the Russian notes, standing up rigidly. "I should end you." 

She brings the rifle up and points it at Mikasa's head. Surprisingly, certain death doesn't scare her as much as she thinks it should. 

The gunshot is deafening. 

(It misses.)

Leonhardt shoulders her rifle, expression carefully blank. Mikasa turns her head and eyes the bullethole in the wood a few centimeters to her right. 

"Can you walk?" the Russian asks. 

"I doubt it." She pauses. "What are you doing?" 

The soldier's lips tighten. "We have a bad habit of failing to kill each other." 

She moves out of sight and then returns with a black rectangle in hand---Mikasa's radio, which had been dislodged when she hit the floor. Thumbing the button on the side, she holds it close to Mikasa's lips and mouths, "Make it fast." 

"This is Red Arrow 1 requesting immediate aid," she says into the mouthpiece. 

Eren's voice reaches her over the device, relieved and tense. _"Red Arrow 1, this is Red Arrow 3! I read you. What's your current location?"_

While she recites her approximate location to her foster brother, she tries to read something in Leonhardt's eyes---anything, really, any kind of emotion there behind those icy shards. It occurs to her that people must think the same about Mikasa's eyes.

The Russian doesn't look away.

When she's done, the soldier stands and lets the radio fall next to Mikasa. She takes up her operating devices and curls her fingers over the triggers, turning towards the shattered window. 

"Wait." 

"What?" 

"What happens if I see you again?" 

There's a question underneath that one: _Will we try to kill each other next time?_

The Russian's eyes waver from their usual stillness, but it's too quick for Mikasa to read properly. "I hope we don't see each other again." 

There's an answer underneath that one: _I don't know._

She jumps onto the sill and grapples away, and Mikasa shuts her eyes against the image.

* * *

_Everything changed after they left the basement._

_Above all, Mikasa didn't have to go to school anymore, which was absolutely fine by her. She was also pleased to see that her mother no longer went to work and was home with her all day; her father still worked, but he was doing very important tasks, like cleaning up streets and repairing military equipment._

_The Army trucks came up the street a few times a week. Each time, Mikasa waited in the apartment while her mother went down to meet them. She would watch through the broken window as her mother took rations from the soldiers and brought them back into the building. Apparently grocery stores weren't working anymore, Mikasa reasoned, because they seemed to be getting all their food and other items from Army trucks these days._

_Soon enough, the new way of life settled over her, and she saw no real problems with it; besides the scorched buildings and broken cars, things were relatively similar. People were angrier, yes. Sometimes they would stand on the corner and shout things that she didn't completely understand---"The Army isn't telling us everything! The Russians are here!"_

_But she didn't dwell. There were much more interesting conversations to overhear in her own house._

_Her mother's voice carried from the kitchen. "Raiders broke into the Eastmans' apartment last night. They're only a few doors away, John. I'm scared."_

_Her father's voice was calm as ever, but even her young ears could sense a worried undertone. "Now, honey, let's keep our heads. The locks work on the front door. We'll be fine."_

_"Locks aren't going to keep these people out. They have guns and it's not like the police are stopping any of this from happening---"_

_"The police have better things to worry about than small crimes like this."_

_"Small crimes? They shot Mr. Eastman in the back! He's never going to walk again!"_

_He sighed loud enough for Mikasa to hear in the other room. "Okay, okay, maybe we'll go up to my parents' house for a while. Until things calm down, anyway."_

_"Thank you," her mother breathed. The subject changed over. "Isn't Dr. Jaeger stopping by? I agreed to watch his boy today. He's about Mikasa's age."_

_"He should be here soon."_

_There was a knock on the front door, forceful enough to rattle it in its frame._

_"That must be him now."_

_From where she sat on the living room floor, Mikasa could see the front door, watching her father pass through from the kitchen and unlock the door without asking who it was first._

_Several beats of strange silence passed._

_"Honey?" Her mother stepped into the front hall now, wiping her hands on her skirt. Another beat of that odd, pregnant silence while she looked at what Mikasa couldn't see._

_Then she was screaming. Mikasa didn't move._

_The men shoved their way into the apartment. Her father fell sideways and slumped against the hallway wall; something red and sticky hit the wallpaper. Her mother fought---wailed and kicked and screamed some more. It was useless, of course, a thin woman against three armed men, and before Mikasa fully registered what was happening her mother was lying on the floor with a cleaver tucked neatly under her ribs._

_"Hey, there's a kid," one of them grunted, nodding at the girl._

_"Shit, you didn't tell us about no kid," another chastised, slapping his partner on the shoulder._

_The man shook him off. "Man, don't worry about it. You ain't gonna do nothin', are you, girlie?"_

_He'd crossed the distance between them and leaned in close, his breath foul and his eyes glassy with what Mikasa figured was a lazy kind of evil. She shook her head._

_"See? She's fine. Now look around, find anything useful. Anything we can sell. Wanna make this quick, okay?"_

_The men dispersed; one went into the kitchen, the others into the bedrooms. Mikasa hugged her knees to her chest and tried to look anywhere but the pool of blood that was inching away from her mother, who wasn't twitching anymore and whose breaths were so light Mikasa couldn't see them disturb her chest anymore. She listened, instead, to the sound of the men overturning her already overturned house, sitting in the middle of it all like the eye of the storm._

_The front door creaked. She expected another raider, or a neighbor coming in to check on them after all the shouting---why hadn't someone come to help earlier, when her mother was fit to burst a lung from all her yelling?---but it was something entirely different. A boy with big green eyes poked his head through the opening in the door he'd made, looking at the bodies on the floor and then at the girl on the rug, and he said: "Where are they?"_

_She said, "Everywhere," although she was certain that that's not what he wanted to hear._

* * *

The pain dulls in some places and worsens in others, and she lies on the floor and stares at the bullethole next to her head.

Eren should be on his way now, with help hopefully. She tries her damnedest to wait vigilantly, but every now and then she drifts off into some injury-induced bastardization of sleep, only to wake up a few minutes later in a haze of confusion, caught between dreams of Russian spies and the harsh reality she's crippled in now. She doesn't feel like Mikasa Ackerman.

Day is fully upon the city now, and a thick bar of sunlight shoves its way in from the window, stretching as far as it can but never quite reaching her. The street beyond is abnormally quiet now. The fight must have gone elsewhere---the Russians and Americans probably vacated the Titan-heavy area to continue their fight in peace (she sees the irony in this but chooses to ignore it). Every now and then, a Titan stomps by, and she even sees a few through the window, but they never seem to notice her. 

Even though her body tries to rebel against her, and her head swims from the effort, she eventually sits up, looking down at herself and hoping that she still has all of her limbs. Surprisingly, everything's there, but her uniform is ripped in more places than she'd care to count and stained with blood, and that's not to mention the bruises and internal injuries she can't see. She extends her arms. They pop at the elbows and hum with some lasting pains, but there's nothing serious. Her legs concern her more; she's lost all feeling in the right one, the one that the the Russian named Leonhardt had so kindly stepped on, and the arrow wound from the Catskills has reopened and bleeds freely from the left one. 

Walking seems out of the question, but she still makes an attempt. After several embarrassing failures, she manages to hoist herself up with the help of a nearby couch that's on its side, and learns soon that her right leg won't support her at all and her left leg is reluctant at best. The floor is scathingly familiar when she collapses on it.

She settles on sitting with her back against the couch, pressing her hand to the quietly oozing wound on her thigh while she waits. Her radio is on now, and she listens intently to the progress reports that come across the waves: _"Russian squadron moving in from the northwest, take 'em down." "Titan presence on 57th, proceed with caution." "Man down on 5th, we need assistance ASAP!"_

It seems like eons pass before she hears a voice that she recognizes. It's Eren. _"Red Arrow 1, you still with us?"_

"I'm here," she says, holding the radio up and thumbing the receiver button. "Where are you?" 

_"Close by. Hang on, I've got help with me."_

Sweeter words have never been uttered. But something tugs at her conscious--- _Armin._ "Where's Armin? Is he---"

"He's alive," Eren says, cutting her off and effectively saving her from having to voice her fear. "Jean got to him after the Titan knocked you out of the way. He's shaken up, but he's fine."

"Thank god," she breathes, closing her eyes in relief. "Just get here soon." 

She's already decided that her meeting with the Russian spy will go unannounced to her friends, so she locks the rendezvous in the vault and is fully prepared when Eren lands lightly on the windowsill, his hair disheveled from flight and his clothes torn from fight. His eyes are like twin planets, big and brilliant, and it doesn't surprise her that she revolved around him for so long. 

He drops into the room, followed by Jean, Sasha, Connie, and a pale Armin. Eren offers a grin that she doesn't see much of these days. "Damn, you look like you got your ass kicked, Mikasa." 

She agrees.

* * *

_The boy with planet eyes had a knife in his hand, like the ones the raiders carried, but to her, he was anything but malicious._

_"Where?" he repeated, his expression burning with intensity. She pointed to the kitchen, and he disappeared inside._

_There was a rustle of movement, the sound of something hitting the floor hard, but no voices---she was absolutely certain that the boy was dead, and she wouldn't be far behind. But he surprised her, slipping out of the kitchen with his knife newly reddened. (She realized that that meant the man in the kitchen was dead by the boy's hand, but she overlooked this.)_

_"There?" he asked now, pointing past her, to the bedrooms. She nodded._

_He padded past her, going into her bedroom with the knife raised at his waist. She heard the man inside start to shout something, but the noise cut off in a wet gurgle, punctuated by the thump of a body striking the floorboards. This time the knife was dripping when the boy returned to her side._

_"That's it, right? No more of them?" He gestured around the room as he did so._

_She opened her mouth, but the words kept getting lost on the way out, mostly because the third man had emerged from her parents' bedroom and was glaring at the boy with an evil that was anything but lazy._

_"There were three," she said._

"You little shit!" _the man barked, and he caught the boy by the back of his neck and threw him. The knife landed near her; the boy landed under the table. He scrambled away, but the man got him by the ankle and dragged him out, wrapping his hands around the boy's throat and pinning him to the oriental rug._

_"You killed them? Huh? You killed my buddies? Well I'm gonna fucking kill you, brat!"_

_Mikasa tried to move, anything, a finger, an eyelid, but she felt like she was sitting in honey, and any movement was a herculean effort. The boy was screeching---sometimes she understood him, sometimes she didn't. The gist was simple._

_"Fight! You have to fight! If you don't fight, you can't win!_ Fight!" __

_It wasn't that simple, she wanted to tell him. Her mother had fought, and she was almost certainly dead; her father hadn't had the chance to fight, but if he had, she doubted he would have been able to do anything. They weren't raiders. They were just people. Weak people in a cruel world._

_"Fight!"_

_Even in the face of her own helplessness, his words wormed through, just a bit._

_The knife was just a few inches from her fingers; she'd just have to extend them---just like that---and it was in her hand._

_She raised it, and blood ran off the blade and over her knuckles, jolting her._

He's right, _she thought, getting to her feet. She had to do this. She could do this._

_The boy was barely kicking anymore; the man hardly had to put forth effort to keep him down now, but Mikasa didn't stop to wonder if she was too late. She knew how this worked. The knife would pierce the flesh and the blood would leave the body. She'd seen it happen twice today. Three times wouldn't undo her._

_She was right behind the raider now, the knife raised overhead in both hands, and he was completely oblivious to her. It was easy. A strong downward motion._

* * *

Her 3DMG is useless, so she throws an arm over Eren's shoulders and limps down six flights of stairs just to get to street level. The late afternoon sun is merciless. Armin, Jean, Sasha, and Connie are already waiting on the weathered asphalt, having used their gear to get down, keeping watch for enemies. 

"Your chariot awaits, Ackerman," Jean says with a wry smile, holding the reins of an off-white mustang. 

Eren gives her a boost into the saddle while the others mount their own horses. She grimaces as they start to move---even the simple task of riding strains her wounds. She stays rigid in the saddle, white-knuckled over the reins, doing everything she can not to pitch sideways when they go over rough terrain. 

A few minutes into the ride, Eren trots up next to her, looking her up and down carefully. "You sure you're okay?"

"I'll be fine once we make it back," she tells him, though she feels far from fine. 

"You scared the shit out of me, you know," he mutters, a trace of hurt in his voice. "I thought you were dead. I mean, that Titan hit you _hard_."

She remembers clearly. "I thought I was dead, too." 

"It's not like you."

"Excuse me?" 

He frowns. "You've been off your game lately, I guess. You're usually the one who comes back without a scratch and takes down twice as many Titans as the rest of us. It's not like you to . . . "

"Get backhanded out of the sky?" she supplies, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, sure. Just . . . is something bothering you? Need to, I don't know, talk, or something?" 

She can tell he's trying hard, since Eren isn't exactly the touchy-feely type. But she can't picture herself untangling the strange story of the Russian soldier, so she brushes it off. "I'll be okay. I think I will, anyway. But thanks." 

"Yeah, anytime, sis," he says, smiling on the last word. She returns it as best she can. 

The others catch up as they skirt around a fallen building, discussing the battle. They bring Mikasa up to speed along the way. 

"Where are the Russians now?" she asks, keeping her voice carefully blank.

Connie grins. "We ran them away from the river, moved deeper into Manhattan and stuff. The fight was nasty. I mean, I don't think we've ever used 3DMG against people before. They were ready for it---they were really good at dropping the operating devices when they needed to and picking up their rifles. We caught on eventually, but it was pretty awkward." 

"How'd it end?" 

"They retreated," he says with unconstrained pride. "Took down a hell of a lot of our guys, but they still beat it. General Smith said we weren't going to chase them. Better to wait a while, then head back home." 

The purpose of the mission suddenly flashes in the forefront of her mind. "What about the submarine? Did the bomb squad destroy it?" 

"Sadly, no," Sasha sighs, letting the reins fall and wiping her blades clean on her pants. "The sub was a lot deeper than they'd thought. When the Titans came, Smith ordered them to come back up." 

"So, what? That's it?" 

"We'll try again," Connie assures her. "They probably moved the sub, but we'll just find it again. They can't hide forever." 

She hums her agreement, keeping her eyes forward as Armin rides up next to her. He offers a tentative smile. "Hey." 

"Hey." She scans his features, which look softer than usual. "You alright?" 

He looks away. "Now I am. I thought I was a goner earlier. Thanks for coming after me---sorry I almost got you killed."

"Don't mention it." She means it. "We're all going to be okay now. All of us."

* * *

_The last raider died slowly, jerking in the throes of his mortal wound, the knife jutting awkwardly from his back. She watched the boy slowly start to breathe normally, hands fluttering around his bruising neck. Once she was sure he'd live, she left his side. There was something she had to do._

_Mikasa didn't have to touch her father to know he was well and dead. His eyes were sprung open and fixed on nothing, and he was still as a statue. The front of his shirt was dyed red. Half of her wished that her mother would be in the same state; she wasn't. Lying half-inside the kitchen doorway, her mother still drew quiet, fruitless breaths, so slight that they barely moved her prone figure. Both of her hands were laced together over her abdomen, a last-ditch effort to keep her last drops of blood inside of her._

_"Mikasa," she wheezed, nearly inaudible._

_She didn't know how her mother knew it was her, seeing as the woman's eyes were screwed shut, but she knelt beside her anyway, wincing when the puddle of blood on the floor made contact with the hem of her skirt and began creeping through the fibers. She took one of her mother's slick hands, but it fell out of her shaking fingers almost immediately. "Mom."_

_She felt older, years older. Old enough to realize that a nine-year-old had no business feeling that way._

_"What do I do?"_

_Her mother tried to smile but didn't quite make it. "You be strong. That's all."_


	7. black swan

She sleeps for a full, uninterrupted day when they get back, and wakes up feeling half-herself. Christa is leaning over her when she finally opens her eyes, and in a moment of sleep-addled confusion, she swears that it's the Russian soldier Leonhardt. 

"Mikasa? Can you hear me?" Christa's light, almost musical voice banishes the image of the Russian from Mikasa's mind, and she nods slowly. 

"Oh, good," Christa sighs in relief, leaning back. She's perched on the edge of Mikasa's cot with a roll of clean bandages in hand. "Dr. Zoë asked me to look after you today, and I was worried you weren't going to wake up. You looked kind of . . . dead." 

"Felt kind of dead, too," she says hoarsely, wincing at the sound of her own voice. 

Christa stands and smiles. "Don't strain yourself. Get rest and let those injuries heal right, okay? I'll be back to check on you later."

She's just about to leave the med room when something occurs to her and she spins back around. "Oh, I almost forgot. The doctors left all your gear in here, so when you're well enough to get up, don't forget to take that down to Equipment and get it fixed. See you later!" 

The door shuts behind her and clinical silence fills the tiny room. Against her better judgement, Mikasa struggles to sit up, swallowing an urge to vomit when vertigo slams into her. She scans the neatly laid out medical supplies on the counters and finds her gear in a semi-orderly pile on the floor nearby. The 3DMG is trashed, and she makes a mental note to go down to the outbuilding and get it to an engineer. Her uniform, ripped and bloodied, is folded underneath; she's definitely going to throw that out. Her rifle and radio sit askew nearby. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Except. 

Something about her radio keeps drawing her eye. 

A tiny, folded-up scrap of paper is tucked under the radio's clip, barely visible under the plastic. Deliberately placed. She watches the door for a moment, half-expecting someone to barge in and catch her, although she's not breaking any rules. Something about the scrap screams _wrong_ to her, so she leans as far out of bed as she can without falling out of it, stretches her arm until the shoulder makes a little popping sound, and reels the device back in her hand. 

Winded from even these small motions, she eases back into a comfortable position and wiggles the paper free from the clip, setting the radio to the side cautiously and unfolding the paper in one swift movement.

_Specialist Ackerman  
Berlin Wall, Paley Park  
Midnight - 10-16-22._

She reads the three lines of small, scribbled handwriting several times over before very, very carefully re-folding the note and sticking it in the waistband of her shorts.

Though she remains very still, her mind races---somehow she _knows_ that came from Leonhardt. It's not signed, but she sees no other explanation. She racks her brain, thinking back to her last meeting with the Russian, despite how painful it is to revisit the memory. The radio. The spy _had_ given her the radio---she'd been out of sight, out of Mikasa's line of vision for a few moments. Long enough to write the note and plant it? Possibly.

So much for rest. She inspects the radio carefully for further clues, but it's fruitless. She returns it to the pile of equipment at the end of the bed and fingers the bump in her waistband where the note sits, thinking. Berlin Wall, Paley Park. _Berlin Wall_ is gibberish, but the words _Paley Park_ ring a bell. She's never been there, but she vaguely remembers it being nestled in Manhattan somewhere. 

_10-16-22._ October 16th---exactly one week away, if she's doing the math in her head right. 

A time, a date, and a place. Now all that's left for her to do is show up---which, the reasonable side of her says (in a voice that sounds suspiciously like her uncle's) is completely idiotic. It's almost inevitably going to be a trap, and she'd more than likely be killed, or worse, captured: Russians are experts when it comes to tactics of torture. 

The less reasonable side of her, the one that's been rearing its head a lot recently, counters these nearly certain facts with, _But what if you don't get killed?_

Not the most compelling argument ever concocted, but she still knows in the pit of her stomach that she's going to be there.

* * *

She decides to do her best to heal up properly, so as to be ready for the 16th, and follows all of the doctor's orders to the letter. Armin notices this out-of-character behavior almost immediately. 

"What's going on with you? Does it really hurt that bad?" he interrogates, standing over her with her arms crossed. 

"No. Why can't I just decide on my own to maturely do what Dr. Zoë says?" 

He raises his eyebrows. "This is you we're talking about. You'd probably try to get back in the saddle if your arm got bit off, so excuse me for being surprised by your willingness to stay in bed for days on end." 

"I'm turning over a new leaf in self health," she quips. 

He hums in a wholly unconvinced fashion and picks up her chart, hand-written by Dr. Zoë after her analysis of Mikasa's injuries, and reads it over. Mikasa could recite it by heart. Heavy bruising to the right femur, re-opened laceration on the left thigh, contusion in the liver---those are the main ailments, anyway, reigning supreme over a myriad of other bumps and cuts. Armin shakes his head and sets the chart down on the counter.

"This is my fault," he sighs. "You're stuck in hospice because of me and clearly you've hit your head hard enough to be acting like a different person." 

She frowns. Armin has always worried about being a burden to his teammates, even since their time as cadets, and she and Eren often have to forcefully assure him that he's an invaluable member of the squad. "Stop blaming yourself for this. I should have been looking anyway. If it's anyone's fault, it's mine." 

"You would have been thinking more clearly if I wasn't hanging over a Titan's mouth," he mutters, eyes low. "I didn't even see it coming. It grabbed the cables of my gear right after I shot them out and suddenly the whole world was upside down."

"You're alive, and that should be enough to cheer you up." 

He shrugs, still staring at the floor. "I guess. Look, I have to go. Eren and I are going on night watch with Jean and Christa today. Both of our squads are down a member, since you and Marco are . . . you know, so we're going to be teamed up for awhile. I'll let you know about it when we get back if you're awake." 

He trudges out, leaving her alone once more, which she's already deduced is anything but good for her. Being alone with her thoughts usually leads to obsessing over her meeting with the Russian, which is now only four days away and dominating her mind. She's confident that she'll be able to walk by then---Dr. Zoë commends her healing progress every time she bustles by.

* * *

Annie lands on the roof of the GE Building ten minutes after she receives the message from Reiner.

She tries to make the effort to meet the worried eyes of her comrades, but her gaze keeps falling to the toe of her boot, to a patch of Specialist Ackerman's blood that dried there. 

"Where the hell have you been?" Reiner wants to know, his muscular frame filling her line of sight. Not that his size has ever scared her.

She rakes her eyes up to his disinterestedly, refusing to rise to the challenge. "You're not my commander." 

"I don't care." He crosses his arms, biceps bulging. "I didn't see you while we were fighting the Americans. Where were you?" 

"I don't answer to anyone but the Master-Sergeant. Go harass someone else." 

Snark is effortless. It's easier to sass Reiner than to explain that she's been failing her country and her mission, willingly; admitting such failures would mean a military trial and most likely an execution, or at least exile from her homeland. She moves past him without another word. 

The roof of the GE Building, formerly a lush and beautiful garden, now overflows with greenery; she steps through the shin-deep grass and shrugs past a tight-lipped Bertholdt, whose eyes flick from her to Reiner and back nervously. She sees Ymir sitting on the edge of a marble flower box, the white of her uniform blending with the cracked stone beneath her. 

"'Bout time you came along," Ymir scoffs, raising thin eyebrows. "Chickened out of the fight today, huh?" 

"Hardly." 

Ymir laughs the way she likes to when nothing funny has been said. "Could have fooled me. I haven't seen you all day." 

"That's usually my intention." 

"Jesus, you're catty," the taller girl mutters, putting one arm behind her back and stretching her shoulder. "Did your date turn you down for junior prom or something?" 

"I don't date," she says, a little too quickly. Ymir's grin grows malicious.

"Seem a little defensive there, Leonhardt. Don't tell me you're falling for some civilian street trash. It's _so_ not like you." 

"Don't be ridiculous," Annie snaps, but her hand brushes against her radio seemingly of its own accord, and her thoughts reel back to the note she slipped into the American's radio earlier.

Ymir raises both hands innocently, beginning to amble away. "Alright, alright. Just don't forget to invite me to the wedding. Where's that gonna be? The subway tunnels, or the sewers? I need to know what to wear." 

She leaves Annie standing alone with a deep glare working over her features. 

Around the garden, the other Russian soldiers begin to settle down for the night. More senior officers are fortunate enough to have tents to pitch in the long grass; younger soldiers make do with rolled-up sleeping bags. Annie sets hers down on a patch of concrete walkway, if only to get away from the grass and the bugs it carries, and isn't surprised when Reiner and Bertholdt camp out next to her. 

As he unhooks his gear, Reiner grills her some more. "Seriously, what's going on with you? You're shifty." 

"This is wartime, Reiner, not a sleepover," she says bitingly, sliding under the nylon fold of the sleeping bag and facing away from him. "Go to sleep." 

"We can help if something's bothering you, Annie," Bertl chimes in, his long legs drawn up to his chest.

She shuts her eyes, keeping her back to them. _You can't help me._ "I'm trying to get some rest. You should do the same."

* * *

"What the fuck happened to you?" 

She's half-awake when Levi speaks, jolting her from the last traces of sleep. He's sitting in a folding chair beside her cot with both hands laced together in his lap, head tilted to the side critically. 

"What are you doing here?" Countering a question with a question. She can feel a wave of irritation cross over him. 

"I'd heard my niece was hospice-bound for five days straight. Excuse me for being somewhat concerned." 

Mikasa blinks sleep from her eyes and pushes herself up on her elbow, eyeing him carefully. "I'm fine." 

"You're incapacitated," he corrects. "So I redirect you to my original question: What the fuck happened to you?" 

"I'm a soldier, sir. We get hurt." 

He shakes his head. "Not like this. Not you." 

Before she can get a word in, he continues, "You've been making a lot of mistakes recently. Elementary mistakes. Now, maybe I'm looking into things a little too closely, but if I had to pinpoint exactly when you started bullshitting around like this, it would have to be around the time you brought a goddamn Russian spy home." 

"That was some time ago, sir." She keeps her expression clear and her voice level, but inside, panic has its way with her---does he know? It's absurd, but still, she can't help but fear that he's onto her arguably traitorous affairs. 

"Of course, of course." He sits back, one leg now balanced on his knee. "But it's a small world we live in, Specialist. Our paths cross in more places than one, most times." 

"What are you implying, Captain?" 

He regards her coolly. "It was a nasty fight a few days ago. Hectic. Russians and Americans everywhere. Anything could have happened, right?" 

"I don't know what you're talking about," she enunciates, matching his level of composure. "I was blindsided by a Titan, sir. It could have happened to anyone." 

Levi leans forward now, dropping any ruse of subtlety now. "I'm going to be clear about this. I don't know what's going on with you, but I want it to stop." 

"Sir---"

"Don't." He gets to his feet. "Just remember what those people are, Ackerman. Remember what they've done to our country."

* * *

The morning of the 16th, the lieutenant gives her the clean bill of health. 

Although she's all healed up, her body still aches in a number of places, and she has to limp every now and then when the pain in her right thigh flares. Regardless, she's thrilled to be able to pull on a clean uniform and walk out of the med room on her own two feet. Her eagerness to regain some measure of autonomy doesn't phase Eren's insistence on hovering, unfortunately. He's waiting in the hallway for her.

"There you are." He immediately goes to her side and throws her arm over his shoulders. "Come on, I gotcha." 

"Eren, I can walk." 

"Just 'cause you can doesn't always mean you should," he chides, supporting her weight even when she tries to wiggle away. 

He fills her in on some of the happenings around the base as they go. "It's been real slow around here. I guess Smith wants us to recover from the last big mission or something, but no one's been on duty all week. No patrols, no night watch. It's pretty boring, actually. Almost miss those Titans and Russians right about now." 

"I get the feeling." 

"Yeah, well, we'll all get back in the saddle pretty soon, I imagine," he theorizes. "I'm tired of being stuck in here all the time. We're always doing paperwork while Smith and Levi and the others draw up battle plans in the War Room. Fun stuff, you know? Why can't we be in on that?" 

She rolls her eyes. "We're two years out of the academy, Eren. That's hardly old enough to be in the War Room." 

"Apparently not," he grumbles, eyebrows sinking. "You know Armin's in there with them?" 

"Really?"

"Yeah. Lieutenant Zoë told Smith that Armin's really got a mind for strategy, and they invited him to sit in on the meeting. He's in there right now." 

She hums lightly. "Good for him." 

"I _guess_ ," he sighs. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't jealous, though." 

"It'll be you in there one day," she says, patting his shoulder. "Patience." 

He mumbles in a dissatisfied manner and finally lets her walk on her own. "If you say so. Come on, let's grab breakfast." 

Try as she might, Mikasa can't follow the flow of conversation in the cafeteria. Her thoughts are completely absorbed with Paley Park and her midnight rendezvous, one that in all likelihood will end in unrivaled disaster, but one that she'll attend nonetheless. Eren occasionally glances at her curiously, but she averts her eyes each time. 

Come afternoon, she's looking forward to a thorough shower when Armin stops her in the hallway, a manila folder tucked under his arm and his face drawn with secrets. 

"You're feeling better?" he asks, a tired smile replacing the tight frown. 

"To an extent." She looks him up and down, from the folder to the blond strands escaping his ponytail. "And what about you? Are you alright?" 

He exhales heavily. "I don't know. General Smith let me watch the proceedings in the War Room this morning. It's just . . . it's a lot to take in. They talk about wiping people out and killing so casually, like it's not even killing anymore. It's all systematic." 

"You know, you don't have to be there if you don't want to," she reminds him gently. "Just tell them it's not for you." 

"I like the strategic side of things, it's just the destructive aspect that gets me. But I think I can do some good work in there. So I'm going to stick with them." 

She offers a smile. "You'll be okay." 

"Thanks." He drums his fingers on the manila folder. "Hey, last week . . ." 

"What about it?" 

"During the fight," he attempts, biting his lip. "Did you---did you see her?" He drops his voice to a whisper. "The Russian?" 

She doesn't reply. Armin knows more about the Russian than most, but she can't imagine him being very understanding of her plans to meet the girl. When she lies, it feels big and heavy in her mouth---she never lies to Armin. "I haven't. And I hope I never do." 

"Good," he says, a relieved smile on his face. "See you around." 

He hustles away, and she moves off in the opposite direction, heading outside and towards the football field. Fresh air is alarmingly unfamiliar to her when she breathes it in. The outbuilding near the stadium is nearly empty at this time of morning, and the engineers inside are happy to return her gear to her, fully repaired. 

The 3DMG is a therapeutic weight, something healthy and natural. It doesn't do wonders for her strained leg but it does make her feel a step closer to her old self, which she's desperately in need of. She makes sure to issue a new rifle while she's out, and in the interest of exercising caution, straps a new hunting knife to her thigh, anticipating the highly possible need she might have of it tonight. 

More than twelve hours to go until midnight.

* * *

When Annie sleeps, she dreams.

It's always the same dream. She's nine years old again, impossibly tiny and fragile, waiting at the window. The street outside is reduced to white swirls under a heavy Siberian snow. She still stays, diligent, hands pressed to the freezing glass as if that will make him come home any sooner, as if she will even be able to see him approach in the blizzard.

Every day without him home is scarier than the last. She can't turn on the radio---it just warns about American foot soldiers day and night, telling awful stories of their enemies storming the towns and burning them to the ground. The weather worsens as winter pushes on, leaving them blind to their surroundings, vulnerable to attack. The townspeople barely go outside anymore. 

Despite the wretched circumstances, she's sure her papa will be home before the Americans come, if they ever do. Papa is out with the Russian Army, she knows, fighting the intruders tooth and nail; he's tough, her papa, and she knows he'll make it home without a scratch. She just wishes he'd hurry up a bit. 

When the window becomes too cold to touch anymore, she begins to trace old paths around the house, through the kitchen that barely has food in it nowadays---the living room that no one lives in---her little bedroom where the windows are shuttered with corrugated steel---her father's room, untouched for weeks. She never lingers there; pictures of the mother she never knew are all propped along a shelf, and whenever Papa looks at them he gets sad, which in turn makes her sad. 

She's at the top of the stairs when a deafening bang is dealt to the front door. Annie barely hears it over the howling wind, but she can't pretend she didn't hear it---moments later, a second blow is placed on the outside of the door, and it swings open, admitting a blast of cold and snow that shocks her even from across the room. She clutches the banister of the stairs as a dark figure stands silhouetted in the doorway, scanning the room. 

Her stomach sinks through the floor because she _knows_ that's not Papa.

The American soldier is tall and fair-skinned, wearing white camouflage and leering at her through thick goggles. His rifle is as slick as his voice---he speaks in surprisingly fluent Russian, with no trace of an accent. "Hey, kid, come on over here. I'm not gonna hurt you." 

Annie doesn't believe him for a second, but she goes anyway, because she's used to doing what adults tell her to. She imagines Papa's voice in her head, telling her what to do in this situation. She's sparred with him a thousand times. She knows how to fight, how to throw a punch, how to take one. How to use her size to her advantage. But Papa's also taught her an inalienable truth: Don't take on someone with a gun unless you have one, too. 

The soldier gestures with the rifle. "Where are your parents? They upstairs?" 

"They're not here," she says, so quietly that the roar of the storm that leaks in from the open front door nearly covers it.

"Hey, now, don't lie to me." He glances over his shoulder, then kicks the door shut, silencing the room in a swift motion. "I know you wanna protect your mom and pop, but I won't do anything to them if they just cooperate with me, alright? Now, where are they?" 

"I'm not lying," she says. Her throat is starting to close up with imminent tears---her father would be so disappointed if he saw those. "They're not here. Really."

"Well, where are they, then?" 

"Papa's fighting the war," she breathes, trying hard to remember what he smells like and coming up short. "And Mother's not anywhere." 

The American seems to understand her meaning, and decides not to press the subject of her mother. He drops into a crouch in front of her. "Your pop's fighting in the war, huh? What's his name?" 

She gives it to him, not seeing the harm in it, and he gets to his feet again, ambling to the corner of the room and talking fast into his radio, in English. She recognizes a few words---father, Russian, army, girl. Not enough to make sense of what he's saying. The soldier returns and looks down at her; she's always been small, but the American is particularly tall, and her head only clears his stomach.

"How long have you been here on your own, kid?" 

She thinks about it. "A month or two." 

"Jesus shit," he mutters, shaking his head. "Your pop didn't mind leaving you alone here?" 

"Papa taught me everything I need to know to be on my own." 

The American swears again, baffled. "Well, don't worry about a thing. I'm sure we'll find somewhere for you to go---" 

"I'm staying here. I have to wait for Papa to come home." 

"Oh yeah? When's he coming back?" The soldier's eyebrows wiggle, as if he finds the thought of her father returning to be both outlandish and hilarious. 

"Today, maybe. I don't know." 

Her reply is completely serious, and it stops his chuckle for a moment. She can see the cogs working in his brain, considering the possibility of her father and a faction of the Russian Army charging into town, challenging the invaders. But he seems to brush it off. "Look, kid, I don't think your pop's coming home---" 

This time, when the front door slams open, she _knows_ it's her papa.

She says nothing as he draws a handgun and fires at the American, remaining quiet as the bullet hole in the back of the soldier's head begins to ooze and he slumps forward, inches from her. 

"Annie," is all her papa says, as he shuts the door and locks it.

She rocks back and forth on her heels, all of her wanting to throw herself into her father's arms and hug him for dear life, but her father isn't that man, and if she's being honest, she isn't that girl. So she says, "Papa." 

Her father's face is weathered from wind and snow, his beard a little longer than she's used to, his clothes tattered and dusted with white. He sports bandages around the knuckles of both fists and has dual pistols strapped to his sides. 

"Did he hurt you?"

"No." She examines the American's corpse. No, he didn't hurt her. He was almost nice, in a way. As nice as American soldiers can be. 

"Good." Her papa bustles into the kitchen. She hears drawers open and close, the rustling of misplaced objects. He exits with a steak knife slid into a strap around his thigh. 

"Are you staying?" she asks, before she can help herself. He pauses with one foot on the stairs. 

"Annie, we have to leave." He pivots in place, thick eyebrows knit together with concentration. "More American troops are headed this way. We're moving north. They probably won't follow us that far." 

"You're taking me with you?" Being misplaced from her life doesn't sound so bad, as long as she goes with her papa.

He frowns. "You'll be going with the other townspeople up north. My squadron will follow at a distance, to keep the enemy off your backs, but after that---" 

"You're leaving again." 

He catches the hurt and disappointment on her face and drops to one knee in front of her, taking her bony shoulders in his broad hands. "None of that, Annie. You have to be strong now. This war isn't going to be over soon, so you need to remember everything I've taught you and give them hell." 

"Who?" 

"Everyone. The world is your enemy, Annie. Never let your guard down." 

These are her father's last words to her. He's only just finished speaking when the door is kicked in a third time, this time knocking it straight off its hinges, and three Americans fill the doorway, shouting in indistinguishable English taunts. Papa's hands are still on her shoulders when they shoot him neatly through the head---in one temple and out the other---the blood splattering against the stairwell and the front of her sweater.

When Annie wakes, she dreams.

* * *

By nightfall, Mikasa's nerves are wound tighter than the coils of cable in her gear. Her friends notice how antsy she is at dinner, but no one presses the matter, fortunately. She's relieved to make her escape as soon as she's done eating, taking a very casual path outside to the lawn. 

A few patrols pass her as she ambles along the grass, but none of them engage her. She scans the perimeter whenever they aren't in sight, taking in the routes the patrols walk, the number of guards by the front and back gates. She eventually uncovers the perfect spot---a patch of fence where the guards don't pass very close, thrown into shadow by two twisting trees. Mikasa waits patiently for the nearest patrol to move along before scaling the fence and dropping onto the sidewalk.

Being on the other side of the fence, alone, is unsettling. She's used to moving in groups, having the security of a squad around her. Walking through the dark without anyone beside her isn't something she's done in a while, and definitely not something she wants to do again. After a few squeamish minutes on the road, she grapples up to a building's crown and starts moving by rooftops, knowing it to be safer from civilian ambush. 

The way to Paley Park is etched into her brain by now; she spent most of the afternoon examining a map of the city, tracing the way from base to the park over and over. It's deeper into Manhattan than the high school, but not impossibly far, especially with the aid of 3DMG. She remains incognito all the way there, then stands on a building across the road and examines the park from above.

It's what people used to call a pocket park---a strip of greenery hemmed in on three sides by the buildings around it. A little oasis in the middle of the big city. She can imagine how beautiful it must have been before the war. Now, the formerly trim park is choking on its own weeds. Ivy runs up the sides of the buildings surrounding it; a formerly functioning waterfall and fountain combo is dry as the sun. 

But the scenery isn't important right now. Mikasa focuses on the shadows, on hiding places, on places where ambushing Russians might charge out of. But nothing moves or breathes in the time that she takes to watch, and slowly, carefully, she rappels down to the street and enters the park through its open front gates. 

She expects gunshots and pulling hands; nothing happens. 

She takes hesitant steps forward, her boots quiet against stone and grass, and keeps her fingers poised over the operating devices. She's ready for a rapid escape, if it comes to that. It doesn't. She stands just inside the gate for several minutes, eyes darting everywhere, but everything remains still under the wash of moonlight. 

Feeling bold, she moves farther into the park. White tables and chairs are scattered and overturned around the fountain area, all of them turned on their sides or flipped over. She's wondering how she's supposed to find the Berlin Wall when her eyes turn to the northern wall of the park and she sees two things of interest: one, a strip of graffiti-ridden concrete slabs that don't make any sense in midtown; two, a Russian spy.

The Russian has her back to her, apparently examining what Mikasa assumes to be the Berlin Wall, and doesn't turn around when Mikasa approaches. A sign of trust, or mere arrogance? 

"I'm not going to shoot you," she says, still facing the graffiti. 

Mikasa doesn't lower her weapons. "I'm supposed to believe that?" 

"I came unarmed." 

Indeed, the spy doesn't appear to have any weapons; her 3DMG is without blades. Mikasa sheathes her swords after a heavy silence, still ready to rip her knife out of its thigh holster if need be. Cautiously, she goes to the Russian's side, studying the wall so as not to have to look at the spy beside her.

"This is the Berlin Wall?"

"Part of it." The Russian's eyes sweep from one end of the slabs to the other, lingering on the great orange face that an artist painted over them. "There are pieces all over the world now. This one is the closest." 

Mikasa can't remember ever learning about the Berlin Wall during her brief schooling; she's a soldier, more learned in the ways of killing than books. "What is it?" 

The Russian doesn't seem surprised by the question. "It was erected in Berlin in the sixties, meant to divide the respectively fascist- and-soviet sides of West and East Germany. Thousands of families were ripped apart by it. Countless people died trying to escape over the wall."

"Why are we here?"

"My father was half-German." She kneels in front of the concrete and gingerly touches it, as if trying to learn more about it through osmosis. "His father was killed by guards when he tried to scale the wall." 

Mikasa doesn't see what this has to do with Russians or Americans or the war that plagues them now, but she lets the spy talk, because something in that monotone voice relaxes her muscles. 

"Why did you call me here?" Mikasa asks, after a pause.

"Why did you come?" 

Touché. 

Mikasa turns in a slow circle, wary of being seen so casually with an enemy soldier, but this slice of Manhattan is deathly quiet at this time of night. The Russian is watching her when she turns back around, icy blue eyes quizzical. "Nervous?"

"Cautious," she amends, her fingers itching to brush the hilt of her knife but staying firmly by her side. 

"You shouldn't be. Not here." The girl sits with her back to the Berlin Wall, arms looped loosely around her knees. "No one needs parks anymore. Are you going to stand there all night?" 

Mikasa hesitates, but eventually sits cross-legged on the cracked concrete, directly in front of the spy. The girl regards her with some interest, her eyes lingering on one of her operating devices, where Mikasa had scratched _Ackerman_ into the metal. "Your name doesn't match your face." 

"Pardon?" 

The Russian tilts her head to the side. "You have a white's name but an Asian's face." 

"My mother married a white man." 

"Is your first name equally misleading?" 

She thinks it's a roundabout way to ask for her name, but she gives it nonetheless. "It's Mikasa." 

"Appropriate." The Russian follows Mikasa's gaze to the embroidery on her left breast. _Leonhardt._ "Before you ask, my name is Annie." 

Finally having a name to match to the face is odd, but Mikasa likes it. She isn't content with the meeting, though. "I need to know why." 

"Why we're here? Or why we're alive?" 

"Both," she elects, leaning back on the heels of her hands. 

Annie rests her cheek on her arm, looking off in the other direction. "When I was younger, my father told me the world was my enemy. So I became very good at fighting, shutting people out. Killing. I've never been in a position where I had the opportunity to end someone, and I chose not to." 

"Until me." 

"Until you." Annie meets her eyes now, narrowed with scrutiny. "You saved my life when you didn't have to. So I spared yours when I didn't have to. Fair trade, equal exchange. At least, that's what I told myself." Her slim hands creep up and lock behind her neck, rubbing at the tension under her pale skin. "The truth is, I didn't let you live to settle the score. I just . . . didn't want to kill you. I guess." 

Mikasa furrows her eyebrows, staying quiet while Annie continues. "I wanted to see you now because I'm afraid if I meet you again in a fight, I won't know what to do." 

"I've just been hoping not to see you again," Mikasa says, mouth dry. 

"Hoping's never worked for me, so I took action." She shuts her eyes. "It's stupid. That this is even a problem for me." 

"For us," Mikasa contradicts. "I've never had trouble killing someone, either." 

_We're not so different,_ she thinks, even though she knows they are. Different girls from different countries, with different allegiances and different pasts. 

"I should go," Mikasa asserts, getting to her feet.

Something she doesn't recognize stirs in Annie Leonhardt's eyes, but the Russian doesn't move from her spot. "So what does this mean?" 

"If I had the answer to that question, I wouldn't be here." But she thinks hard anyway, scuffing her boot against the ground, and still coming up blank.

"I have an idea." Annie stands as well, her hand slipping into her pocket and emerging in a fist. She holds her hand out, opening her fingers to reveal a square of paper in her palm. "Let's just make sure we meet off the battlefield, not on." 

Mikasa remains statue-esque for a moment, half-expecting attack, then reaches out and takes the note. There's no spark when their skin meets for a brief instance, no fireworks behind her eyes, but she swears that Annie's eyes shine a little brighter, like polished steel. 

She buries the note in her pocket and leaves without saying goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy august


	8. we the people

_New York Public Library  
Midnight - 10-20-22_

Mikasa doesn't read the note until she's a good distance from Paley Park, resting on the roof of a bookstore with her legs hanging over the edge. Four days between now and their next visit. Plenty of time for things to go wrong, but she chooses not to dwell.

Stuffing the note back in her pocket, she gets to her feet and makes the quiet trek back to the high school, tracking the movement of patrols across the lawn for a while until she rediscovers a safe place to hop over the fence. A few soldiers raise eyebrows when she appears suddenly out of the darkness, but none confront her. The tension of the night diminishes as soon as she crosses the threshold. 

The halls are without noise at this hour, which she's grateful for. She stops by her room to pick up a change of clothes, careful not to wake a snoring Sasha on her way out, then heads down to the locker rooms for a shower, wondering if she can wash guilt away as easily as dirt. She wouldn't bet money on it. 

In the showers, she's just beginning to unhook her gear when voices carry over from the locker room, accompanied by the rustle of towels and clothing. She recognizes them easily: the doctor, Lieutenant Hanji Zoë, accompanied by Warrant Officer Petra Ral.

"I really need a good night's sleep," Ral sighs. A locker slams shut.

"Don't we all?" Even Zoë's usually emphatic voice is somewhat downcast. "It's been a long month." 

"That's the truth. Between Titans and Russians, I barely have time to blink nowadays." 

Another locker slams. "At least things are slowing down now. I think it was all a case of bad luck and worse timing." 

"I hope so," the warrant officer says. "But you know, I've been thinking about it, and something's kind of struck me as odd."

"Oh?"

Ral hums in confirmation. "It's the civilians. We haven't had any skirmishes with them in over two weeks. In fact, I haven't even _seen_ one recently. Isn't that strange?" 

There's a pause while the lieutenant thinks. "Well, maybe they're having the same bad luck as us."

"That, or they're planning something. I hope your theory has more weight than mine." 

Their voices fade as they leave through the main gym floor. Mikasa waits for a minute before removing her 3DMG, setting it down carefully on the tile floor, then shucking the rest of her equipment and arranging it on the row of sinks. While she shakes off the bulletproof vest, Petra Ral's theory sticks in her head.

U.S. soldiers have been off the streets for a solid week---plenty of time for the more malicious civilians to get together and throw ideas around. Ideas for what, Mikasa isn't sure, but she shares the warrant officer's apprehension. She's seen gangs of civilians engage in turf wars that burned whole neighborhoods to the ground. What they could do to an Army base is questionable, but still concerning. 

She has her shirt halfway off when the alarms go off. Ear-splitting blasts ring from alarms all over the school, drilling through the former silence and electrifying the air. Tugging her shirt back on, she whirls around and darts to the door, which opens onto the lawn. The reason for the alert isn't clear to her, but she takes it seriously nonetheless. More information is most likely waiting in the main building, so she wrenches the door open, ready to make a mad dash across the grass. 

A trio of unfamiliar people waits on the other side. Scarred, weathered people. Wearing ratty clothing and carrying the crude weapons of the average New York citizen.

"Where are you runnin', bitch?" the frontman snarls. He cocks the length of pipe in his hand back and thrashes it into her chest. Somewhere between the pipe and the ground, she mentally congratulates Petra Ral on deducing this turn of events, if not a little too late. 

She strikes the tile hard on her back, all of the air rushing from her lungs from the force of the blow, and has only just blinked the sparks out of her eyes when rough hands latch onto her shoulders and haul her back into the room. She struggles halfheartedly, but she can't draw breath properly around the pulsing pain in her chest, let alone strike the furious people surrounding her. 

"Another _do-nothing_ , _no-use_ soldier is about to die," the leader spits, a sick grin crawling over his stubbly face. "What a happy day it is, ay?" 

The man next to him laughs viciously. The woman who completes their trio aims a kick at Mikasa's side, the steel toe drawing a groan from her. The female civilian gets close to her, but doesn't smile. "Ain't so tough without your guns and knives, are you?"

 _Guns and knives._ Head reeling with pain, Mikasa acknowledges that her gear and rifle are over by the sink, but the word _knives_ strikes her. _I still have the knife._ It's the one she picked out especially for the meeting with Annie, and it's still strapped to her right thigh, unnoticed by her attackers. The woman now cracks a victorious smile, not catching the tiny movement of Mikasa's fingers reaching, catching, and unsheathing the knife. 

"Fuck you," is all she can manage before she drives the knife into the woman's throat, closing her eyes just before the spray of blood can temporarily blind her. 

Her eyes are still closed when the woman collapses on top of her and the men roar in fury; she tries her hardest to wriggle out from under the dead woman's weight, twisting the knife free as she does, but she has no leverage, and the men are angrier than she is desperate. A heel comes down on her wrist; crying out, her fingers spasm and the knife is kicked out of reach. The woman is rolled off of her only to be replaced by the leader, who sits on her bruising stomach and winds a hand in the slick material of her shirt. 

"Who the _fuck_ do you think you are, huh?" He punctuates his sentences with punches---one that breaks her nose, another that splits her lip. "You have no right to take anything from us!" Another strike. "Nothing! Not life, not property, nothing!" Another.

Sticky blood collects in her throat. She turns her head and coughs hard, expelling it, and fights hard to think clearly through the haze of throbbing pain, but it's like trying to see through muddy water. The world tilts in a different direction every time she blinks. 

"Let's end her," the second civilian growls, and somewhere behind her, she hears a shower start to run. 

The leader lands a final punch and then heaves her upright by the throat. She scratches wildly at his calloused hands, overtaken by the panic of having her airway cut off, and receives a hard knee to the stomach. He releases her throat only when the other civilian is in position behind her, locking his arms around her and pinning her hands to her sides. Sucking in ragged breaths, she aims a last-ditch kick at his kneecap, so weak that it does nothing but amuse her captor. 

"Bath time, little girl," he croons in her ear, towing her closer to the running shower. 

He shoves, and she hits the wet tile, catching the brunt of impact on her hands. An immobilizing boot comes down on her back. She cranes her neck to keep her mouth and nose above the water that rapidly collects on the stall's floor, looking back to see the leader grinning once more and his partner standing over her malevolently. 

Mikasa's been in seemingly hopeless situations before, but this one tops the list. Centimeters from drowning, a good two yards from her equipment, and outnumbered---yes, this one should go down in history. But she's never been one to give up very easily.

The civilian leader crouches down next to her, catching her face in his grip, his eyes glittering vindictively. He applies pressure, holding her face underwater for a horrifying minute. "This is all for the greater good, baby." 

_Don't call me that,_ she thinks. She opens her mouth and bites down with all of the fight left in her, clamping down on the man's hand hard enough to draw blood. 

_"You little bitch!"_ He pulls his hand back, holding it close to his chest. She takes the moment of confusion to her advantage and twists around, pushing off the stall floor as forcefully as she can. It's just enough for the second man's boot to slip off. On her back now, she jerks her leg back and smashes it forward, hearing the satisfying crack of the man's shin snapping. 

He shouts and keels over, clutching his broken leg. The leader swears again and grabs for her throat, but she tweaks out of the way and shoots her hand out, catching him by the collar of his patchy coat and dragging him down to her level. She digs her nails into the side of his head and rams it against the shower floor once, twice, three times---hard enough for her to catch drops of his blood begin to filter into the water. 

The leader goes limp, now bleeding freely from the side of his head, and she sits up, blinking hastily as she comes out from under the spray of the shower head. The last man standing is crawling away with surprising speed, his hand reaching now for her rifle, sitting innocently on the bank of sinks. 

It takes a staggering effort, but she gets to her feet and catches up to him before he can get his hands on the gun. She lands a solid kick on his spine, a hair away from paralyzing him permanently, then takes her rifle in her hands and flips the safety off. 

"You're going to fuckin' die one day, and I wish I could be there to see it," he grinds out, shutting his eyes and resting his cheek against the cool tile. "It's your karma, bitch. The universe is going to wipe you and all your kind out for what you're doin'." 

"What exactly are we doing?" she asks, deciding to entertain his dying spiel. 

He spits blood. "You're trying to enforce your damn rules. Trying to lord over us like you're better than us. Like being the government's pawns makes you any different. Don't change a damn thing, honey. The world ended a long time ago. You all are living in a little fantasy. There is no government. There is no world. Ain't nothing but us people now, and you're going to learn, sooner or later." 

She shoots him in the head.

After that, she rinses the blood from her face and dries herself off, limping back to the sinks and painstakingly putting her gear back on. She realizes numbly that the alarms have stopped ringing. She knows the drill---once the threat is eliminated, they'll start ringing again, signifying victory. They aren't ringing yet.

She puts a bullet through the unconscious leader's head, just to be safe, then sits against a wall and waits for her head to stop chasing circles around itself. Disorientation takes hold of her for a while. She drifts on the line between consciousness and sleep while she waits, half-dreaming of her parents and Central Park and sometimes, of Annie Leonhardt. 

Time passes outside of her understanding. Slowly, she heaves herself up, taking deep breaths to keep her head from spinning. When she feels confident in her stride, she heads outside and surveys the area from the doorway. The battle between the soldiers and the civilians is winding down by now---she must have rested longer than she thought. Bodies are strewn through the grass, littering the lawns with the reek of death. She steps over a bullet-ridden corpse and makes for the main building, wanting to know what's going on with some degree of certainty. 

The last civilians eventually surrender. She watches from the front steps as they're led away, taken to an outbuilding to be detained for questioning. The charge of adrenaline in the air begins to fade. Inside the building, she finds Eren and Armin sitting in a dim hallway, resting after the sudden battle. They both jump to their feet when she turns the corner.

"Holy shit, there you are!" Eren rushes over and hugs her tightly enough to agitate her injuries, but she lets him ride out the wave of relief he must be feeling. He pulls away and looks her up and down, lingering on her split lip and a rapidly blackening eye. "What happened?"

"Surprise attack," she says simply, too tired to go into detail. "Are you two alright?"

"We're okay." Armin smiles, but his face looks too tired to support it. It collapses in seconds. "Something happened."

Her stomach sinks. "What is it?" 

"The Russians"---she already knows she's not going to like Armin's news with that introduction---"were spotted in the area around the time of the siege. We don't think they're related to the attack, but rather they were attracted by the fighting. In any case, they got pretty close and a few of them were captured." 

Mikasa's hands threaten to start shaking, so she curls them into fists and listens closely to the rest of Armin's speech. "They were taken upstairs to the library for questioning." 

They watch her face expectantly, but she keeps it smooth. "We should all go to bed."

* * *

She doesn't go to bed. 

She waits for the boys' footsteps to fade before turning full circle and heading for the library. Fear sloshes in her veins---is Annie there? She wants to believe that the girl's too skilled to be caught so easily, but the anxiety in the creases of her bones doesn't lessen as she pulls the heavy library door open and steps inside. 

The soldiers inside are all gathered near the back of the room, watching through the window of a tiny, cramped office with a teacher's name nailed to the door. The office is empty but for a rickety table and a chair, which is currently occupied by someone in a white Russian uniform. Captain Levi stands on the other side of the table, his back to the window and the interested soldiers peering through it.

 _Please, for the love of god, don't let that be Annie._ Mikasa repeats this over and over in her head, a mantra that steadies her as she eases through the onlooking soldiers and gets a good look through the office window. 

It's not Annie. It's a muscular blond young man with a square jaw, staring Levi down without a trace of fear on his strong features. For the first time all night, Mikasa relaxes. It doesn't last long. Within minutes, Levi calls to the waiting soldiers, standing patiently as they haul the Russian to his feet and tow him out of the office, past the group of Americans, and into a backroom against the far wall.

From another room on the opposite side of the room, Levi's next captive is brought forward. Mikasa's luck runs out. The soldiers bring Annie Leonhardt before Captain Levi, blindfolded and bound. They bind her wrists to the chair and remove the blindfold, leaving the captain and the Russian alone once more. The office door shuts. 

Annie's eyes rest on the tabletop for a while, but once they finally do pan up to stare blankly through the window, they land on Mikasa's. Subconsciously, she sits up straighter, eyebrows furrowed, and Levi turns to see what piqued the Russian's interest. 

For a heavy, silent moment, Mikasa meets her uncle's eyes, then Annie's, and then her uncle's again. He says something to Annie and then leaves the office, his eyes boring into Mikasa's as he shuts the office door behind him. 

"Specialist Ackerman," he says, his face painfully neutral. "We're interrogating the Russians, seeing as they so kindly graced us with their presence. How would you feel about taking care of this one?"

Her heart beats fast and loud in her ears. She knows what he's doing; it's a test. A challenge that will tell him once and for all if she's really as detached from that particular Russian as she swears she is. If she refuses, he'll assume the worst; if she accepts, she'll have to do something unspeakable. 

"I would love to," she replies, and he opens the office door for her, gesturing for her to enter.

She enters the little room on wooden legs, doing everything in her power not to wince when the door shuts behind her. The burn of soldiers' eyes on her back is unbearable. Annie's gaze is worse---wary and taunting and maybe hurt, too. 

Mikasa tells herself that she's just playing a part. A part that she's played for years now. So she lays her hands flat on the table and leans closer to the captive, opening her mouth to begin the questioning and realizing she has no idea what to ask. In the end, she doesn't really have a question.

"Listen to me." She drops her voice to barely above a whisper, meeting Annie's eyes no matter how uncomfortable it is. "If I try to walk out of here like this, it's going to look very suspicious. So I'm saying I'm sorry in advance." 

Annie doesn't have to ask what she's apologizing for. 

Mikasa walks around to Annie's side of the table and wraps one hand around her throat, nearly faltering when she notes how unfairly soft her skin is under her fingers. When she speaks, it's at a normal volume, for the benefit of the listeners. "Why did you come here tonight?" 

Annie doesn't reply---she plays her role as well as her scene partner. Closing her eyes, Mikasa grips her rifle to keep the onlookers from seeing her hands shake and rams the butt into Annie's stomach, an interrogation move she's seen her uncle do a thousand times over. Annie doubles over as much as her bindings will allow, coughing a few breaths before Mikasa pushes her upright by the neck.

"Answer me." _Don't hate me._

Annie responds by glaring---very convincing---and telling her to go fuck herself. Mikasa deals a white-knuckled punch that snaps Annie's nose, then hooks her ankle around one of the legs of Annie's chair and jerks it away, tipping the chair over backwards with a crash. Outside, one of the soldiers whistles appreciatively.

She kneels. From this position, the table blocks them from view of the window; she has a minute or two before Levi's suspicions grow too much and he barges in. "Sorry." 

"You don't have to keep apologizing," Annie says, but her eyes are closed and blood from her nose is leaking into her mouth, muddying her words. 

Mikasa doesn't reply, wiping the blood away gingerly and struggling to remain composed when Annie's eyes open in surprise. Her chest feels like a super storm is bouncing around in it, a hurricane-esque mix of emotions that aims to flood her insides, and she has to focus on her breathing to keep from trembling all over. Definitely not a trademark Mikasa Ackerman skill.

"I'm sorry." Again, because she doesn't know what else to say.

Annie spits blood onto the bland carpet, turning her eyes to the ceiling in a hopeless gesture. "We all are." 

She hears the doorknob turn. She has mere seconds before she's interrupted; she intends to make them last. 

For a kiss, it's spectacularly poor---she ends up with Annie's blood all over her lips and the awkward angle makes her neck twinge. There's also the looming threat of her uncle, now stepping over the threshold, and the fact that as soon as she pulls away, she punches Annie Leonhardt in the face, just to be safe. 

But for a first kiss, it'll have to do.

"That's enough, Ackerman," Levi says behind her. She straightens up and wipes incriminating blood from her mouth before turning to face him, catching hints of relief and maybe some pride in his expression. He's fooled. For now. "Go get some sleep."

* * *

Guilt and confusion eat away at her as she tosses and turns in bed, unable to sleep for more than a few minutes without waking up and swearing she can hear the sound of Annie Leonhardt's nose breaking right beside her. Her knuckles still ache from the force of impact and a seasoning of shame.

At breakfast, the Russians are on everyone's minds, dominating conversation. She slides silently into a seat between Armin and a recently-healed Marco, tuning into the table's discussion with ease.

"Levi stayed up all night with 'em," Connie says, hands curled around his cup. She vaguely remembers seeing him at the interrogation.

"How many Russians did we catch?" Sasha asks excitedly, so intrigued that she even stops chewing briefly. 

He thinks. "Four, I think. Yeah, four. A super tall guy, a super buff guy, a nasty-but-in-a-hot-way girl, and another girl who was like, shorter than _me_."

"Jesus, we caught a dwarf," Jean jokes. He's in much better spirits now that Marco's out of hospice. 

"She wasn't _that_ little," Connie laughs. He notices Mikasa for the first time and smiles conspiratorially. "Come on, Mikasa, you were the one that got to beat her up. She wasn't that short, right?" 

She swallows, although her mouth is already dry. "She was pretty short." 

She feels Armin's eyes on her throughout the rest of the meal, but she ignores him, ready for the questioning he's preparing as soon as they're alone. He corners her in a hallway and all but drags her into an unlocked classroom.

"She's _here_?" he blurts, face all tied up in disbelief.

"They brought four Russians home last night. She's one of them." 

Armin rubs a hand over his face, shakes his head. "What did Connie mean, you interrogated her?"

"Levi saw me watching when they brought her in for questioning. He asked me to do the honors, and I agreed." 

Armin's smart enough to deduce why Levi would do something like that, and searches her face for emotion. "Are you okay?" 

"I did what I was supposed to," she says flatly. His expression dawns with understanding. 

"But you didn't like it, did you?"

* * *

Ymir can't believe it. 

By _it_ , she means anything. Literally, everything that's happening to her is unbelievable. Most of all, she and her idiot squad were actually _captured_ \---an outstanding failure that she blames entirely on Reiner---and she's stuck in a U.S. base with almost certain death hanging over her head. She also can't believe Annie refuses to talk to any of them, and finally, she can't believe that the girl interrogating her is an actual, enlisted soldier.

She has to be shorter than Annie, if that's even possible. Goddess features and gold hair, blue eyes that always look a step away from glossing over with tears. Her voice is like something out of a kid's special on TV. And she's trying to get you to answer her questions, which you can barely hear over your own chuckling. 

"Why were you and your comrades in the area last night?" she asks, hands flat on the table, eyebrows slanted angrily. All the individual parts of her are doing something intimidating, but the whole of this soldier is nothing short of adorable. 

"Who cares?" Ymir yawns, leaning back in the chair she's bound to. "Let's talk about you and me. Renz, right? You get out much?"

The girl's cheeks redden considerably, but she attempts to push on. "Answer my questions, or my friends Kirschtein and Bodt here will _make_ you answer." 

Ymir slowly pans her eyes from one soldier to the other, unimpressed. The boys flanking her---Renz's sqaud, she imagines---hold their rifles like clubs, waiting for the interrogator to give the order to strike.

"What's in it for me if I answer your questions or not?" Ymir shakes her head, eyes closed in mock disappointment. "Listen, honey, I'm going to die in here, sooner or later. So why the hell would I answer your questions if you're going to end up killing me anyway?" 

This stops Renz in her tracks, but the one called Kirschtein jumps in seamlessly, his hand locking around her throat. "You answer our questions now and you die with some dignity. If you make us stay here all night, you're going to be begging for us to kill you before long." 

"Very scary, junior," she says, although he's probably around her age. Her voice is strained from the pressure of his fingers against her windpipe. "You watch a lot of cop movies when you were a kid?"

"Fuck you!" The butt of his rifle arcs into view and then smashes against her face; she can feel the black eye coming on immediately. 

"Jean, calm down." The other boy, Bodt, puts a hand on his shoulder---a gesture that seems strangely intimate. "Don't knock her unconscious before we get anything out of her." 

Jean Kirschtein purses his lips but allows it, taking a step away from the prisoner to cool off. Bodt takes his place, his face betraying no mercy. Renz tries again. 

"Are the Russians planning an attack on this base?" 

Ymir yawns again, because it makes Kirschtein's blood boil. "I just follow orders, I don't make 'em. Maybe you should have caught some officers instead of us fuck-ups." 

"You have to know something," Renz asserts, crossing her arms. 

"I know plenty," Ymir says, a smirk in place. She winks. "For one thing, I'm a great kisser---" 

"That's enough!" Bodt rewards her with a knee in the gut, then unties her from the chair and tugs her to her feet with Kirschtein's help. "We're not getting anything out of this one. Come on, Christa, we'll try again later."

"Christa? I like it," Ymir says, laughing when Kirschtein rams his rifle against her shoulder blade. "Call me." 

Christa Renz is still blushing from cheeks to chest when she's led out of the room.

Kirschtein and Bodt tow Ymir across the library, to a hallway in the back that's lined with little records rooms. The one serving as her cell is unlocked and opened for her. Kirschtein does the honors of shoving her inside, with Bodt standing by to lock the door behind her. When their footsteps fade, the ensuing silence makes her skin crawl. 

She knows that Annie's in the cell to her right, and Bertholdt's in the one to her left, with Reiner on his other side, and if she raises her voice a little, she can talk to them through the thin walls. But she doesn't know what to say to them anyway, and besides, in enemy territory, the walls have ears. So she stays quiet, for once.

* * *

While she's alone in her makeshift cell, Annie resets her broken nose, a painful process that makes her hands shake. The blood starts to gush from it again, and she does her best to wipe it away with the bottom of her shirt. She examines her stomach a few times, watching the bruise from Mikasa Ackerman's rifle purple for a while. She can't tell if her lips are tingling from Mikasa's fist or Mikasa's kiss.

Just thinking the word makes her chest feel tight, a sensation she doesn't recognize and wishes she could get rid of immediately. She spends a lot of time pacing the tiny square room she's locked in, trying to put her thoughts to anyone _but_ the specialist, and usually failing. 

The only distraction from her confusing and painful relationship with the American is the bleak situation she's in now---trapped in a way that would make her father disgusted with her. He must be rolling over in his grave, seeing how far she's fallen.

Annie inspects the room a hundred times after she's locked in. Filing cabinets line the walls, making it even more cramped than it already was, and a desk and chair are tucked into one corner. No vents for her to crawl through, no breakable windows, no floorboards for her to tear up---just sterile carpet and a lot of papers. 

She's contemplating the possibility of moving the filing cabinets around, poking around at the parts of the walls she can't see behind them, when the door unlocks behind her.

She spins around and plants her feet defensively, staring the man they call Captain Levi down without flinching. He's short, not much taller than her, but she can see why the Americans respect him to the point of fear. His eyes look right through her, seeing everything she might hope to hide. 

Come to think of it, they're a lot like Mikasa's.

"Good afternoon," he says, the door falling shut behind him. She doesn't like that.

She replies in Russian, just to irk him. "Добрый день."

"I know you can speak English, Corporal, you don't have to play this game. My niece can attest to your grasp of our language."

Shit. "Your niece?" 

"I believe you're acquainted with Specialist Ackerman?" He pulls the chair out from under the desk and sits. 

He's trying to get a rise out of her, she knows, and she's not going to give him the satisfaction. "Which one is that again?" 

"Tall, dark-haired, eyes like mine," he supplies, though the expression he wears implies that she already knows who he's talking about. "She saved your life once or twice." 

_He knows._ She never changes her face---too obvious. But inside, her bruised stomach flutters anxiously. "We've met." 

"Clearly." Levi stretches his legs out, hands clasped in his lap. "How's your nose?" 

"Broken." 

"A shame," he says. She agrees.

* * *

It's nearly three in the morning when Mikasa finally admits that she can't sleep. 

She gets out of bed and dresses for the next day a good four hours early, simply because she has nothing else to do, then sits on the edge of her bed in the dark and listens to Sasha's deep breathing. It isn't long before she lips outside into the hallway. 

The base is deathly quiet once more, the threat of Russians and civilians now eliminated, and she relaxes some as she goes. Before long, she's standing in front of the library. The windows in the doors show nothing but darkness beyond. She makes sure the hallway around her is empty before slipping inside. 

The record rooms where the Russians are held are guarded by Connie and Marco, who lean on the wall and yawn periodically. They seem happy to see her when she joins them.

"What're you doing up this late?" Connie asks, rubbing his eyes tiredly. 

"Couldn't sleep." 

Marco smiles through his obvious exhaustion. "Me either. 'Cause, I'm not really allowed to. You know. Guard duty." 

"Only a few more hours, now," Connie says, mouth twisting around a yawn. "Come on, Marco, buck up. Our job is mega important." 

"Yeah, you're right. I'd kill for a cup of coffee, though." 

"Ain't that the truth." Connie turns back to Mikasa and suddenly gets a gleam of an idea in his eye. "Hey, would you mind standing watch for a few minutes? Just so Marco and I can sneak down to the kitchen and grab something to drink. Keep us fresh, and whatever." 

"Um," is all she can manage, because she doesn't think she's the best candidate for watching Russian prisoners.

"Thanks, you're the best!" Connie hands her his rifle and leaves with a grateful Marco, stranding her in the back hallway. She turns slowly and looks at the four records rooms, lined up neatly down the dark hall. She wonders which one Annie's in. She doesn't have to wonder for long.

"Mikasa?" 

She thinks it strange that she can recognize that voice immediately, but goes to the first locked door and lays her hand on the wood. "I'm here." 

"Alone?" 

"Yes." She curls her hand into a fist, digs the knuckles into the wood. "Sorry."

"Stop saying that." 

"It's the truth." Mikasa looks back over her shoulder, ears peeled for Marco and Connie's return. "Are you okay?"

"I am for now. But they're not going to keep us alive forever." 

She shuts her eyes and rests her forehead against the door. "I know." 

_I know._ There's a lot more hidden under those words--- _I know they're going to kill you, but what am I supposed to do about it?_

She doesn't let herself answer that question.


	9. spin me like a chamber

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings for mild/somewhat less mild methods of torture in this one, don't bring the kiddies

The Russian soldier behind the table has dark skin and hair, freckles dashed across her face, and a playful smirk waiting in the wings at all times. 

A senior officer deposits Mikasa in the interrogation room, his eyes dark with lack of sleep. He yawns into his hand. "I'm getting some rest. See if you can get her to talk, Ackerman." 

He leaves, and she pulls out a chair for herself, sitting down across from the bound Russian, whose eyebrow quirks curiously. Most of the Americans aren't so lax about questioning.

"Aren't you going to punch me or something?" the Russian sneers, her hazel eyes narrowed suspiciously. 

"Maybe," Mikasa answers, honestly. She looks at the Russian's clothes for a name, only to see that the part of the uniform with a last name is ripped off, probably in a fight. "What's your name?" 

The Russian ignores her, the grin reemerging. "Hey, I recognize your voice. You're the one who was sweet-talking Annie last night. Mikasa, right?" 

Mikasa's hands tighten on the armrests of her chair, but other than that, she keeps her face blank. "Answer the question." 

"Answer mine," the Russian laughs. "You must be why Leonhardt's been acting so weird lately. I thought she went and fell for some American street rat, but this is infinitely funnier—" 

She stops when Mikasa stands abruptly, slapping her hands down on the table. "This isn't about me or your comrade. I'm asking about you, and it's in your best interest to answer my questions." 

"Fine, then, if you're going to be so pushy. Name's Ymir. Pleasure to meet you." 

"Likewise," she snips, sarcasm dripping. She sits down again, resting her arms on the table and leaning forward. "I think you know what I'm going to ask you." 

Ymir rolls her eyes. "Yeah, I can guess. You all ask the same shit. 'Why are you in New York? What are your plans? Are you planning another nuclear strike?' Blah, blah, blah. As if I'm supposed to know half of those questions." 

"We don't expect you to know everything, but we do expect you to tell everything you know." Mikasa slides the hunting knife from under the strap that crosses her thigh, spearing it in the scarred wood of the tabletop and spinning it lazily with one finger. Ymir's eyes never leave it. "I don't want to get my hands dirty, but don't worry. I will." 

"Too bad I'm not blonde. And short. Maybe if I was your type like Leonhardt you wouldn't be threatening me—" 

Faster than Ymir can follow, Mikasa pulls the knife out of the wood and flings it. The blade embeds itself in the back of Ymir's chair, a centimeter away from her throat, from killing her. When Mikasa reaches across the table to take the knife back, she sees Ymir's pulse jumping in her neck, erratic with fear. 

"Keep up with the comments and I won't miss next time." She settles back in her chair and sets the knife down on the table in front of her, a dormant menace. "Where were we?"

"You wanted to know everything I know," Ymir says, scowling. "Let's see. My birthday is February 17th—" 

"Why are you pushing me?" Mikasa regards her curiously, like an abstract painting she can't grasp the topic of. "Are you trying to gauge how serious my threats are, or are you just stupid?" 

Ymir laughs again. "Look, the first little girl who interrogated me had to bring some boys in here just to rough me up, so I had to make sure you weren't the same deal. I don't think you are, though. You're not nearly as cute as her." 

"Every time you open your mouth, I like you a little less," Mikasa deadpans. 

"What, you'll like me more if I divulge my deepest secrets?" The Russian rolls her eyes. "Typical interrogator. Buy me some flowers and chocolate first, Jesus." 

Mikasa takes the knife in hand and stands up, moving to Ymir's side of the table and sitting on the edge casually. She flips the blade easily between her fingers. "You're starting to bore me. Tell me something worth hearing and I won't need to use this." 

"Something worth hearing?" Ymir's wary eyes flash humorously. "Annie's cool and all, but if you're thinking about hitting that, you should know she's pretty fucked up—" 

The rest of her sentence tapers into a choked gasp, brought on by the force with which Mikasa drives her elbow down onto Ymir's face. Spitting blood, the Russian glares up at her. "Shit, I'm just helping you out. Honest advice, really." 

"I don't need it or want it." Mikasa wipes a fleck of her captive's blood from her cheek, inspecting it with disinterest before dropping her hand. "I want to know why you were sneaking around this base a few nights ago, and I don't want your blood all over my uniform. Do you understand what I'm saying?" 

Ymir licks a running trail of blood from the corner of her mouth, eyes narrowed again. "You sure want a lot." 

"And you're in no position to refuse." 

"Looks like we're at an impasse, then." The Russian smiles. 

"Not quite." Mikasa shoots her hand out, holding the blade against Ymir's throat and applying pressure. A thin line of blood beads along the knife's edge. "You see, _before_ your country chose to drop nuclear bombs on mine, there were all sorts of laws preventing American interrogators from torturing detainees. These laws are no longer in place." 

Ymir wets her lips, eyes jumping from the blade to Mikasa and back. "You make a good point." 

"I try," Mikasa agrees, stabbing the knife into the tabletop once more. "I can make an even better one." 

The Russian hisses when Mikasa grabs her throat roughly, agitating the fresh wound. The blood paints itself to her palm.

"Yeah, good point," Ymir chokes, wincing. 

"I thought you'd agree." Mikasa takes her hand away and cleans it off on her pants, shaking her head. "And here I was, hoping not to get my hands dirty." 

"Sorry for the inconvenience," the captive says between gasped breaths.

Mikasa's about to rethink her interrogation plan when the office door opens behind her and someone knocks softly on the wood. She fixes a glance over her shoulder and sees Levi standing in the doorway, somewhat interested in the proceedings. 

"Nicely done, Ackerman. Going for the throat always scares them." 

Mikasa turns fully to face him and snaps a salute. "Can I help you, sir?" 

"Mission briefing." He steps fully into the room, waving a manila folder once before setting it down on the table. "Finish up here and then give it a look. Don't take too long—we leave at dusk." 

"Yes, sir." 

"Oh, before I go." He pauses, flicking his eyes from the knife to the Russian, then reaches down and removes a silver revolver from a holster on his thigh. He tosses it. The gun clatters across the table and spins to a stop inches from Mikasa's fingers, catching the fluorescent lights wickedly. "Have fun with that." 

He shuts the door behind him, leaving them both staring at the revolver. Mikasa picks it up and feels a smile tug at her lips, understanding what her uncle implied by giving it to her, and turns back to Ymir.

"You ever played Russian Roulette? You are Russian, after all." 

Ymir's eyes narrow, but she says nothing. Mikasa opens the chamber and lets the bullets spill into her palm. 

"One," she counts, setting a bullet upright on the edge of the table. She watches Ymir's face. "You can start talking now. Before I get to six." 

"Fuck off," Ymir says, but her voice quivers.

"Hm. Two." A second bullet is stood next to the first. Ymir's eyebrow twitches. 

"Three." 

Mikasa pauses with the fourth bullet between her first and second fingers, face carefully blank. "Tell me what I want to hear and this gun goes back to its owner." 

Silence. "Fine, then. Four." 

On the fifth bullet, a bead of sweat appears on Ymir's temple.

"And the sixth bullet goes in here," Mikasa concludes, slotting the bullet into the gun and jerking her hand, knocking the chamber back in place and spinning it simultaneously. 

The chamber goes still. Mikasa turns the gun this way and that, then presents the muzzle to the spot between Ymir's eyebrows. Her finger whispers over the trigger. "Feel like talking yet?" 

Ymir's lips tremble but her face remains stony. 

"Last call. No? Alright."

She pulls the trigger.

Nothing happens. 

The gun clicks. Mikasa hums with interest and draws the weapon away, searching Ymir's face for weakness, and finding nothing substantial. "Your chances of dying the next time I pull the trigger are now increased. Do you want to roll the dice again?" 

"Isn't it your turn?" Ymir snaps, hands white-knuckled around the arms of her chair. 

"I don't play games." She points the gun again. 

"Neither do I." 

Mikasa nods understandingly. "Maybe not. But in this room, you do whatever I tell you to. Ready for round two?" 

"Jump off a bridge," the Russian suggests through her teeth.

"Not likely." She cocks the weapon, the sound bouncing off the silence. "Any possible last words?" 

Ymir shuts her eyes in response, and Mikasa pulls the trigger. Another blank. 

"That's fortunate for you," Mikasa observes. "Another chance to talk. I remind you that your chance of having your head blown off is one in four now." 

"What the hell is wrong with you people?" Ymir barks, suddenly flaring with ire. "I'm not even eighteen. I'm just doing my fucking job, for God's sake, and you want to shoot me in the fucking head for that?" 

Mikasa waits for her to finish, refusing to be swayed by the outburst. "Likewise, I'm just doing my job. That's life. And now it's time for round three." 

_"Fuck,"_ Ymir breathes, closing her eyes. _"Fuck._ Jesus, fuck. Fucking shit. What do you want from me? What the fuck do you _want_?" 

_Breakthrough,_ Mikasa thinks, staying her hand but lifting her finger from the trigger. "When you were assigned to your mission, you were briefed. What was your objective?" 

"The Russian Army isn't run like yours, princess," Ymir growls, eyes still screwed shut. "We don't get pretty little folders with all the info. They woke us up in the middle of the night a few weeks ago and put us on a sub. A month and a half underwater without any details. We only knew we were in New York when we surfaced and saw the Statue of fuckin' Liberty waving back at us." 

"And when you arrived in the States, did you receive orders?" 

Ymir hesitates. The words spill out when Mikasa presses the muzzle forward ever so slightly. "Our superior officers got the real information. We were just told to stay alive. Have fun, I guess. Kill Americans if we wanted to. Don't get caught." 

Mikasa believes her, so she surges on, hoping to milk as much out of the Russian as she can. "Where are the rest of your comrades located?" 

"Fuck if I know. We kept moving every night, in case something like this happened." 

Damn it. "The 3DMG. Where did you get it? Who made it for you?"

"Shit, that's not my jurisdiction," Ymir begins, but she rephrases when Mikasa cocks the gun. "I don't know for sure. Word is one of our guys picked it up off a dead American, took it apart, figured out how it worked, and started building gear for our side." 

Mikasa pauses, an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. "There's something you're not telling me."

Ymir frowns, another bead of sweat forming on her brow, but remains silent. 

"One in four." 

Silence. Mikasa waits for a change, then pulls the trigger a third time.

Even she is expecting a bullet; both of them are surprised by another blank. Mikasa cocks the gun a fourth time. "One in three chance of dying, Ymir. Are you confident enough to keep your mouth shut?" 

Her upper lip quivers.

"I can pull the trigger, and whether you live or die, I can probably still get whatever you're not telling me from one of your comrades. So make this easier for yourself." 

Ymir breathes out heavily, closing her eyes again. "If you want to know more, you need to get Annie to talk. The commander always delivered our orders to her." 

It's the last thing Mikasa wants to hear. She herself hasn't been allowed to interrogate Annie—Levi's used his influence to make sure she's never been the interrogator assigned to Annie, just to be safe. With this information in mind, she wonders if she should tell a senior officer, but immediately shies away from the idea; divulging Ymir's tip will bring the heat down on Annie hard, and Mikasa can't stomach being even partially involved with that.

"I'll let you go now," she says quietly, tucking the revolver and the knife into straps on her torso. She takes the folder that Levi left in her hand and pauses just before leaving the room. She has to know. With her free hand, she draws the gun and pivots, pointing it just a smidgen to the right of Ymir's head, and fires. 

The bullet whizzes close enough to ruffle Ymir's hair, embedding itself in the wall behind her. They stare at each other through the thin wisp of smoke that curls from the gun's muzzle. 

"You're a lucky girl," Mikasa remarks, before she vacates the room.

* * *

The late afternoon sun is slanting through the windows when she leaves the library, heading downstairs and into the cafeteria for a cup of coffee. She opens the dossier Levi delivered with mug in hand, wary of what she'll find on the mission briefing. 

MISSION OBJECTIVE: BOARD AND CAPTURE RUSSIAN SUBMARINE

She reads that line several times before it even begins to make sense. _Boarding_ a Russian sub is suicide; _capturing_ one is near impossible. She reads on nonetheless, raising an eyebrow at the mission description. There's a lot of complicated and dangerous moves in it, including sabotaging the sub's propellers, blowing a hole in the side with explosives, and defeating the entire crew with one elite group of American soldiers. It's crazy, and deadly, but Mikasa doesn't mind. That's the job.

Eren and Armin later join her in the cafeteria, both holding folders similar to hers. "Ready to go?" 

3DMG is prohibited for the mission, in the interest of keeping things quiet. They're issued oxygen tanks and diving masks instead. Their usual rifles are also out of service, replaced by similar, watertight models that won't jam if they get wet. Fully prepared now, the three meet the rest of the soldiers assigned to the mission on the front lawn, snapping salutes when Smith and Levi arrive. 

Smith addresses them, the lines of his face shadowed with purpose. He goes on about how they were all hand-selected for the mission and the utmost importance of their success. While he talks, Mikasa wonders why soldiers of her rank were chosen for such a complex mission, and eventually assumes that Levi made sure she was brought along, if only to keep an eye on her. The other specialists assigned to the mission are probably to keep her presence from seeming suspicious.

 _Clever little bastard,_ she thinks, eyeing Levi. He doesn't look at her.

"Let's move," Erwin says, and they go west, chasing the last lights of the sun.

* * *

The sky is miles into nighttime when they take up position along the Hudson. Mikasa kneels on the roof of an apartment block, hands braced on the edge of the roof, eyes trained on the gently lapping river. The rough position of the submarine is in this stretch of the water, according to a prior-dispatched sonar crew. 

Mikasa glances left and right, tagging other soldiers as they go prone on nearby rooftops or lean up against AC units. General Smith is two buildings to her right. She keeps her eyes on him, waiting for his signal. After a few beats of stillness, he raises a fist, and the soldiers flurry into action. 

She tugs the diving mask on, checking that it's properly connected to the oxygen tank on her back, then takes a few breaths of filtered air. Confident in her equipment, she scales down to street level by a fire escape and flattens herself against the side of the building. When the coast is clear, she takes off at a sprint, hopping onto the guardrail that separates the road from the Hudson and using it as a springboard, propelling into a smooth dive.

The water is freezing. New York is anything but warm in late October; as soon as the river closes over her, she feels her muscles start to lock up in shock. She unlocks them one at a time, twisting this way and that in the blackish water until full function returns to her. Satisfied, she puts a hand to her shoulder and switches on the high-wattage flashlight mounted there, relieved to see its beam cut through her murky surroundings like a knife.

She maintains a depth just a few feet under the surface, revolving slowly to take stock of her team members. Flashlights start to spring up all around, shining on determined faces, illuminating the immediate area sufficiently. When everyone is accounted for, Smith nods to Schultz and Jinn—two of Levi's men, Mikasa remembers—and the pair dives deeper, swimming down and out of sight. Their job is vital: jam the back propeller of the sub and force it to surface.

The wait is agonizing. The soldiers bob just underwater, searching the blackness below for signs of their comrades' return. Armin and Eren swim closer, flanking her, and she's grateful to have them in her line of sight. 

Schultz and Jinn appear out of the depths as suddenly as they left, drawing a collected sigh of relief from the onlookers. Smith motions for everyone to remain still as the fruit of their labor begins to rise from the depths—a Russian Typhoon-class sub, over five hundred feet long and menacing. It ascends slowly, its black metal exterior coming closer until it's all they can see. After an eternity of holding their breath, the soldiers relax: the sub surfaces. 

The bottom half of the hull remains underwater, but they're more interested in the part of the sub that's above the surface. Another of Levi's old squad, Auruo Bozado, takes a unit of C4 in hand and swims up next to the vessel, planting the explosive just above the waterline, in the place where the back tail of the submarine meets the main body. 

Bozado kicks away from the blast sight, puts a safe distance between him and the C4, then detonates with a nod from the general. From underwater, the explosion is strange and diluted—the vibrant colors are dampened by the film of water, and the noise is bone-deep. The water stills, and Smith surges forward, Levi on his heels. 

They board the submarine through the newly-made hole in the hull, one at a time, emerging in a back storeroom full of crates and boxes. In close quarters, Mikasa realizes how small their numbers are: between the members of Red Arrow, the Special Operations Squad, Captain Levi, and General Smith, there are only nine Americans aboard a ship with a crew of upwards of 150 Russians.

"Should we hide?" Armin asks nervously, eyeing the door. "Are they going to come investigate the explosion?"

"Don't worry." Smith pats his shoulder as he passes, pressing up against the wall to the immediate right of the door. "Levi, come take this side. Everyone else—hide." 

Levi flanks the other side of the door while the other soldiers make themselves scarce, fading into the shadows of the room. Mikasa keeps a hand on Eren's shoulder, an old habit brought on by years of dragging him away from danger, and watches the door from the crack between two crates.

Footsteps are audible on the other side, and then two Russians in uniform enter the room, their eyes immediately falling on the new addition to their vessel. The taller one's mouth opens slightly. "Что ебать?" 

Levi and Erwin act in perfect synchronization. As Levi kicks the door shut, Erwin grabs the closest Russian from behind, clamping a hand over his mouth and nose. By the time the other Russian has turned around, Levi is already on him, silencing him with a knife in the throat. Smith dispatches his captive in the same manner.

"That should get them off our backs for a few minutes, but when these two don't come back, they're going to get suspicious," the general informs his team, wiping blood from his cheek. "We're going to make it to the control room at the front of the sub before then. Move out. Weapons tight." 

Mikasa flips her rifle around to hang behind her back and dons her hunting knife instead. In missions that require stealth, the last thing they need is the noise of gunfire. Levi checks before beckoning the squad to follow, moving steadily down a dim hallway. He peers through the window in the door at the end of the hall, then ducks to the side. 

"We've got three inside the next room. Ral, Jinn—on me." 

Mikasa steps to the side to let Petra Ral pass. She and Jinn join Levi by the door as he kicks it open and rushes inside. There's a surprised shout before silence falls again, only interrupted by the gurgling of blood. The rest of the squad enters the room at Erwin's urging and see the three Americans piling the Russian bodies against the wall.

They continue in the same manner, clearing room after room until they come to a crossroads—one staircase leads up, and another leads down. 

"What are we doing, cap?" Schultz murmurs, eyes moving every which way. 

Smith nods to the lower staircase. "We're going down. It's the maintenance access that runs under the sub—we'll run into less enemies this way." 

They descend one at a time, their boots pelting the metal staircase like soft rainfall, and move into the lower segment of the vessel. Here the overhead lights are all a glaring red, painting them a dark crimson as they hustle down the hallway. Pipes run along the walls, occasionally hissing out bursts of steam that threaten to strike them if they're not careful.

"What happens if someone finds the bodies we left back there?" Eren shifts a nervous look behind him. 

"They raise the alarm, and we're in deep shit," Levi replies, effectively silencing the specialist.

The next hallway is inhabited by two Russians with tool belts on their hips, both facing away from them. Levi pushes the door open a hair, then looks back. "Jaeger, Ackerman, take them down." 

Mikasa and Eren nod their understanding and slip through the crack in the door, approaching the targets silently. Eren goes for the messier kill, holding his Russian's mouth closed while jamming his knife into the side of the man's neck. Mikasa, more conservative, places a hand over the man's mouth and jaw and wraps the other arm around his shoulders, creating enough leverage to wrench her hand back and snap his neck. 

They arrange the bodies against the walls and wait for Levi and Erwin to take point again, moving with a new sense of purpose. Mikasa's body always feels different after she kills—more enhanced somehow, like all of its individual parts are listening a little closer to her brain. 

"We're getting close," Levi comments, after he breaks a Russian engineer's neck. 

"I hope so," Petra Ral susurrates, her knife dripping streams of red onto her fingers. 

They're soon confronted with stairs leading upwards, back into the main belly of the ship. Erwin puts one foot on the bottom most stair, his eyebrows lowered with concentration. "Exercise utmost caution. We're very close to the control room." 

The hallways leading to the control room are the most packed with Russians, and the Americans rely heavily on the element of surprise to get by undetected. When they finally do reach their destination, they recognize it immediately by the thick metal door with a large sign nailed to it. Mikasa knows enough Russian to imagine what it says—Authorized Personnel Only.

Bozado shuts the door behind them and braces it shut with his own rifle, nodding at Levi to proceed. The control room's door is locked tight, forcing him to procure a small bundle of low-profile explosives and affix them to the door. The Americans stand back as Levi raises the detonator. 

Erwin's command is sharp: "Kill everyone but the commander. Weapons free." 

Levi waits for the team to pick up their rifles and flip off the safeties, then thumbs the detonator. 

The blast throws the hall and the room beyond into smoke, but the Americans are undeterred, surging forward with rifles high. The Russians scattered through the room get a few shouts out before they fall with multiple GSWs to their heads and chests. When the smoke clears, ten people remain—nine Americans, all pointing their rifles at a single Russian commander.

The Russian's handgun is half-raised, but with one look from Smith, he splays his fingers, letting the weapon fall with a clatter to the metal floor. 

In heavily accented English, he says, "This is very impressive, American." 

"I thought so too," Smith says, lowering his weapon. Bozado and Schultz move to the door, standing watch. The others remain with their rifles trained on the commander. "Give me your name." 

"Colonel Reznikov, captain of the TK-90 косатка," the colonel says proudly, never once wavering even with eight automatic weapons following his every move. 

Smith pulls out a chair for him, gesturing with his free hand. "Take a seat, Colonel." 

Without any choice in the matter, Reznikov sits, looking up at the general defiantly. Erwin sits on the edge of a nearby table, his hands clasped easily between his knees. "I think you know why we're here, Colonel." 

"Oh, I can imagine," the Russian says, a humorless smile touching his lips. "You want what they all want. Information. A motive. Justification for your crimes—how many of my men did you kill to reach me?" 

"Twenty-six," Erwin answers, a hard glint in his eye. "The rest are completely unaware of their captain's distress, so I'd recommend complying to the best of your ability, if you don't want that number to go up." 

The colonel just shakes his head, still smiling. "It does not matter to me whether they live or die. They knew the risks when they became soldiers." 

"Admirable." Levi steps up, face curled with distaste. He pushes the Russian's chin up with the muzzle of his gun. "You talk like someone I'll enjoy killing." 

Erwin stands at Levi's side now, regarding the Russian with disgust. "That part comes later, Levi. Questions first." 

Levi takes a step back, allowing Erwin to catch the colonel by his short hair and jerk his head back. "What is your mission here? Why are you in New York?" 

"This is not my information to give, American," Reznikov spits, glaring. 

Expressionless, Erwin winds his fist back and drives it into the Russian's face, once, and again. He catches the colonel by the front of his uniform and hauls him off his feet, laying a hand on the back of his head and using it to smash the man's face against a table. "I don't care whose information it is, pig. It's about to be mine." 

"So arrogant," the Russian coughs, before Erwin ferries a knee into the man's gut. 

The general throws him with ease. The Russian lands on his back, rivulets of blood running this way and that on his face. He coughs again. "This will get you nothing, American _dog_." 

"I'm inclined to disagree." Erwin plows his boot down on the man's chest, expelling all his air, then draws his foot back and rams it hard into the man's ribs. "What the fuck are you doing in my city?" 

The Russian remains silent. Erwin shakes his head and looks back at Levi, waiting in the wings. "Get the rag." 

Levi unfolds a square of cloth from his pocket and hands it to Erwin, who bends down and drapes it over the Russian's face. "Have you ever heard of waterboard torture, Colonel?"

The man goes very still. "Your government banned this practice." 

"My government's not here." He nods to Levi, who approaches with a flask of water he had clipped to his belt earlier. Erwin unscrews the top loudly, enough for the colonel to hear and understand what's happening. "Are you feeling more talkative, or do you want to know what it feels like to drown?" 

"Burn in hell!" Reznikov barks, trying to sit up. The soldiers move immediately—Mikasa and Eren drop to hold his legs down, Ral and Jinn pin his arms, and Levi puts an immobilizing boot on his chest. Erwin holds his head still with one hand, keeping the towel in place as well. 

The general holds the flask out over the man's cloaked face. "Last chance." 

_"Пошел на хуй!"_ is the muffled response.

"Suit yourself." Erwin tips his hand, allowing a thick stream of water to fall from the flask onto (roughly) where the man's mouth and nose lie under the towel. He gags immediately, fighting against the soldiers restraining him, desperately trying to move his head. 

Mikasa has heard of waterboarding before, but never seen it in practice; she knows, in a logical sense, that it's a truly horrible thing to do someone, especially judging by how fiercely the man struggles against her hands, but notices with diluted surprise that she feels nothing for him. No human empathy forges itself between them; she watches Erwin pour water over him with a steel face, and doesn't cringe. 

She doesn't know if that's the making of a good soldier or the making of a monster, or both. 

Erwin pulls his hand back, watching the man choke a while longer, then whips the towel off. "That wasn't very fun, was it?" 

"Bastard," he retches, sucking in ragged breaths. 

"Talk or we do it again," Erwin bites, throwing the towel back into place. 

"I'd sooner die than tell you anything," the colonel says, but his voice is more withdrawn than before. 

"That could be arranged." Erwin holds the flask out again. "But not just yet." 

The man's words are cut off when the water falls again, and he fights with vigor, frantically thrashing against the Americans holding him down. His stifled breaths and the splash of water hitting the floor are the only sounds in the room. 

Erwin drowns the man for a few seconds longer this time, finally removing the towel when the man's gasps sound suspiciously like sobs. "Just tell me why you're here and this will all be over, Colonel." 

" _Fuck_ you and your country," the Russian hisses, heaving breaths that move his chest under Levi's foot. "You will all burn for this, for what you did to my country, for the sins of your fathers—"

The general deals a bone-cracking punch, grabbing the man under his jaw and looking him in the eye. _"Tell me."_

"You want to know why I came here?" the colonel breathes, blood and water running in equal parts from his lips. "Ask your President." 

Then he laughs, a damaged sound that sets all of their hair on end, and Levi, coldly, removes the revolver from earlier and points it. "I've had enough of this." 

Erwin's lips are pursed with quiet fury. "Do it." 

Levi shoots. The Russian's blood splatters across the metal floor, pinkish pieces of his cranium poking out of the growing puddle. The soldiers take their hands from the corpse and stand, looking to Erwin expectantly. 

The general stands slowly, his lip curling at the sight of the body. "Let's go." 

They move rapidly, eager to leave. Everyone has something to do—Armin stands on a table and plants an explosive in the ceiling of the control room, to be detonated for their escape; Ral and Bozado search the tables for useful intel, stuffing it into plastic evidence bags and tucking it into their clothes. Eren and Mikasa take up guard duty while Schultz and Jinn systematically destroy control panels and other equipment around the room, leaving the Russians as sitting ducks.

Levi takes the radio that sits on a strap on the colonel's chest, fixes it to his own belt, and then nods to Armin. "Detonate." 

They stand back as Armin does the honors, blowing a hole in the roof. Mikasa throws an arm over her face as stray flecks of metal and rust litter the room. When the dust clears, they exit through the makeshift hatch one at a time, sliding off the curved top of the sub and back into the frigid water. They hit the shore and look back at the sub, seemingly dormant. She wonders momentarily if the crew has discovered their decimated leadership yet, and realizes she doesn't care.

* * *

Annie's sitting against the wall that separates her cell from Ymir's when the girl speaks, her voice hard to catch through the plaster and framework.

"I talked." 

"What?" Annie begins, not interested. Then it dawns. "Oh." 

Ymir sighs heavily enough to be heard through the wall. "I tried. I really did. But she held a gun up to my head, and shit, I couldn't stop myself. I think I've always cared more about keeping myself alive than protecting my country's secrets." 

"I can understand that," Annie says, her thoughts drifting to her father. 

"You should stay away from her." 

"What?" 

"That girl," Ymir says, voice low and intense. "The American. Ackerman. She's a fucking psychopath." 

"I—"

"No, really. She pointed a gun between my frickin' eyes and didn't even blink. She's dangerous." 

Annie mulls this over. "We're all dangerous, Ymir. We've all pointed guns at people before." 

"Not like that. I don't feel nothing like that. You know what I mean?" 

"Yes," Annie says, but in all honestly, she doesn't know what Ymir means at all. She hasn't felt something from murder in a long, long time.


	10. blood's thicker than water, ink's thicker than blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy tenth chapter y'all :) many thanks to all you cats reading this junk and dropping kudos and comments and whatnot. please enjoy this ceremonial update, it will prove to be the most homo chapter yet :')
> 
> (sidenote to the reviewer named Alex, the Russian sub idea was devloped independently, but my sister was playing MW3 nearby while it was developed, haha)
> 
> (other sidenote to CalmMango, your rambling is gr8. never change, kid)

"I feel like we never get downtime like this, you know?" Sasha's voice comes from close to the ground, namely because she's sitting on the weathered sofa upside down, her feet propped against the wall and her arms hanging limply next to her. "Nice to relax and all." 

The teacher's lounge is the specialists' favorite haunt between assignments; Connie even spray-painted _104_ on the door, signifying their class in the academy. He currently reclines next to Sasha on the room's leather couch, his boots crossed on a rickety coffee table. Marco sits on the floor in front of the coffee table, the scattered components of something he's building covering his corner of the table, completely absorbed in his task. 

Christa, occupying a sliver of sofa next to Sasha, nods her agreement. "Everyone's been so stressed lately. This is good for us."

"We deserve a break, that's for sure." Jean sits at one of the three chairs around a modest kitchen table, slanting his seat slightly to look out at the room, one arm resting on the edge of the table. "I'm just surprised we don't have to babysit the Russians today. That's all they ask us to do since they got here." 

Armin, next to him, looks up from his notes. "Levi and General Smith are interrogating them personally right now. By the time they're done, there might not be any Russians left to babysit." 

The truth of his words strikes Mikasa the wrong way, but she remains silent, shifting in the third chair to keep her body language casual. 

"That isn't totally a bad thing," Eren says from next to the couch, where he's sprawled on the carpet. "We can finally get back to work if we get rid of them. It's not like they're talking, anyway." 

"Levi and Smith are very persuasive," Connie disagrees, a playful smirk on his face. "They might just crack."

"Good," Jean scoffs, crossing his arms.

Any further talk of Russians is put on hold when Marco suddenly springs to his feet, holding the contraption he's been tinkering with for days. "Done!" 

"Is that a gun?" Sasha guesses, squinting at the silvery object in his hand.

"Kinda." He turns the item this way and that for the other specialists to see. "It's a tattoo gun." 

Eren's eyes go wide. "Dude, how did you _build_ that?" 

"The framework is pieces of an old pistol I found, and the motor and needle came from a tattoo parlor I passed on patrol once," Marco explains. "I filched some bottles of ink, too." 

"Is that sanitary?" Christa asks, eyebrows raised quizzically. 

Marco contemplates this. "Well, sure. Yeah. I sanitized the needle a bunch of times, and the ink was sitting in an unopened box. It's perfectly safe." 

"Why'd you build it?" Jean takes the tattoo gun gingerly and inspects it. 

"For tattoos, dummy," Marco says, but the insult is warm and harmless. He pulls the collar of his shirt down, revealing a line of a Bible passage inked over his collarbone. "I got this one before I enlisted. I've been itching for a few more." 

Everyone (but Jean, to no one's shock) seems surprised by Marco's tattoo. Armin stands and examines the tattoo gun after Jean is done. "Do you know how to use this thing?" 

"Sure I do. My pop owned a parlor." 

"If you say so," Armin says, gingerly returning the device.

Marco holds it in the air and presses a button on the side of the gun. The sound of motor hums out at them, and the needle moves rapidly. "Works like a charm. Who wants one?" 

"Oh, me! Me me me!" Connie gets to his feet and rushes over. "I want skulls. No, flames. No, snakes!"

"Slow down, man," Marco laughs, taking Jean's vacated seat at the table and motioning Connie over. "Just pick something." 

Connie settles for a flat black scorpion on his left shoulder blade, stinger poised. The specialists observe Marco's process of sketching the tattoo on paper and then transferring it to Connie's skin, proving himself to be a talented artist. 

"Look, you're supposed to rub some cream on that to ease the stinging a bit and keep it from fading, but I don't really have any," Marco confesses, finishing up. "You can try to find some from a tattoo place next time we go on patrol."

"Bro, don't sweat it." Connie takes his shirt back and throws it over his right shoulder, looking at his completed tattoo in the reflection of a long-abandoned toaster oven. "It looks _sick_."

Marco smiles brightly. "Glad you like it. Don't do anything stupid and screw it up, alright?" 

Connie agrees wholeheartedly while flexing at Sasha, who laughs so hard she falls off the couch.

"Anyone else?" Marco grins around at the onlookers, the tattoo gun whirring in his hand. 

"Get lost, Bodt," Eren chortles, while Mikasa simultaneously replies, "Me." 

Eren whirls, eyes wide. "Mikasa, are you serious?" 

"I'm always serious." She sets down Armin's pen and notebook, which she borrowed while Connie was under Marco's gun, and turns it towards them, showing the rough design she's scrawled on the back of a sheet. "It's a tattoo my mother had. She said it was a kind of family crest, but she never expected me to actually get it." 

Marco takes the design, raising his eyebrows at the intricate lotus with razor edges. "This is pretty badass. Where d'you want it?" 

Mikasa pushes her sleeve up and bears the underside of her left wrist, the spot where she remembers her mother having it. "Here."

"Extra badass." Marco scoots his chair closer to hers, reaching into a pant pocket for bottles of ink. "What colors are you thinking?"

"Whatever speaks to you."

Marco hums and wipes her arm clean with a wet rag, considering the color scheme while her arm dries. He makes a choice and then begins the basic lines of the clan symbol. The needle is painful, she supposes, but it's far less severe than some of the other trials of her short life, and pretty soon the noise of the gun's motor drones into her head. She barely feels it by the time Marco lifts the device and pats the rag over some of the excess ink. 

The skin is red and raw, the tattoo raised in some places, but she can still see the big picture. It stretches from just under to palm to the halfway mark between elbow and hand. The main color is a shiny black, with some of the edges morphing into a dark burgundy, and then a bright crimson, only to fall back into black. A mental image of her mother comes to her unbidden, clearer than it's been in years. "It looks great, Marco." 

"You like the colors? I kind of went with the scarf." He pokes his chin at the scarf around her neck.

"I love it," she assures him, cradling her wrist to her chest. 

Eren approaches from where he was lounging on the couch, inspecting it with a critical eye. His overall verdict is grudgingly accepting. "It does look good. But you're a little young for tattoos, missy." 

She rolls her eyes. For all her babying him on the battlefield, Eren likes to be equally doting in other aspects of their lives. Armin scrutinizes the tattoo after him. He smiles and tells her it suits her, then launches into a discussion with her about the history and traditions of her mother's clan, which, admittedly, Mikasa knows little about. 

Marco gives Jean a tribal band around his upper arm afterwards, but any further requests are nixed by their radios simultaneously beeping three times. Around the room, the specialists get to their feet, understanding the beeps to mean important news is in need of delivery. They head to the auditorium in one big flock, sitting down as close to the stage as possible. 

Erwin Smith stands behind the podium on stage, Levi standing just to his right with his arms crossed tightly. Blood that they know isn't his is dried to the knee of his pants. 

The auditorium steadily fills with soldiers. Satisfied with attendance, Smith begins his address with his usual hardened expression. "Good afternoon." 

The solders mumble the greeting in return, wary of what Smith has to say. He looks down at a document in his hand before looking up again. "I apologize for the short notice, but the issue at hand is too urgent to wait. Captain?" 

Levi takes the podium, indifference rolling off of him. "Two days ago we seized a Russian submarine and interrogated its commander. The target gave very little information, but from what he did tell us, we decided to send a message to Washington. We've yet to receive a response." 

A sergeant stands in the front row. "Has Washington been attacked, sir?"

"We have no way of knowing," Levi replies. "Which is why General Smith has come up with the following course of action." 

Smith steps in again. "We're planning an expedition to the capital. Radio silence from the White House is too alarming to wait for orders, especially considering what the Russian commander revealed."

Silence falls as the soldiers analyze the new information. The same sergeant raises his voice again. "Sir, how many soldiers do you plan to assign to the mission?" 

"Some will remain to defend this base," Smith answers. "At least forty will be assigned to the mission. In the case that the capital _has_ fallen under attack, I'll need numbers in combat."

"And what of the Russian prisoners?" 

Murmuring evolves around the room. Levi's answer is clipped. "I have classified ideas for what we'll be doing with our guests." 

Mikasa doesn't like the sound of that at all.

* * *

The specialists later receive dossiers, seeing as they've all been assigned to the D.C. expedition, and spend the afternoon picking apart the mission briefing in the teacher's lounge, producing theories to explain Washington's radio silence.

"They're probably scared the Russians will intercept our communications," Mina says, sitting cross-legged on the carpet. "And they don't want to tell us that, because they don't want the Russians to know that they know that the Russians know---"

"Jesus, Mina, use your words." Jean stretches his legs out, sinking deeper into the couch, one arm thrown lazily around Marco's shoulders. 

"She has a point." Christa, on Marco's other side, curls her legs to her chest. She's been looking more pale than Mikasa's ever seen her since the meeting, but continually refuses attempts by her friends to ascertain what's wrong. "What if it really is that bad? And the Russians are all over the coast? The country, even?" 

"It's not _that_ bad," Eren reassures. "If it was, they'd probably have taken over or something." 

Connie laughs from the counter he's lying on, face-down so his tattoo isn't irritated. "Dude, they're not going to take over. Why would they want to? They already trashed our whole country with nukes." 

Jean grins. "Then why are they here? Sight-seeing?" 

"Eh, maybe they got bored." Connie jerks when Sasha, sitting on the floor with her back against the counter, reaches up and pokes him hard in the ribs. "Hey, what was that for?!" 

"Don't be dumb, Connie, they're not _bored_." 

"You never know! Jeez, you poke hard." 

They dissolve into a personal argument. Marco watches for a while before bringing the topic of the expedition back. "Anyway, this mission looks like it's going to be a pretty big deal. It's almost a two-day trip to Washington on horseback, and that's assuming we don't get attacked along the way." 

"Positive thinking," Christa chimes in, but there isn't as much sunshine in her voice as usual.

* * *

The afternoon sun is on its last legs when Levi makes a decision regarding the Russian prisoners. 

Eren, Armin, and Mikasa are aiming for the cafeteria when the Russians, bound at the wrists and blindfolded, are processed down the main stairs, heading out for the lawn. Levi follows them closely, geared up and holding a rifle to his shoulder. He sees Red Arrow milling nearby and pauses. "You all are welcome to come along if you go get your 3DMG." 

He ambles away, after the train of captives. The three exchange curious looks before rushing off to the equipment building, not even bothering to wonder where exactly they're going, or what exactly Levi plans on doing with the Russians; all they care about is being there to see it. 

They catch the entourage just as they're leaving the campus, jogging to Levi's side as the gates are opened for them. Eren can't keep his curiosity down any longer. "Sir, what are we doing with the prisoners?"

"We're going to make them talk," Levi replies, eyes on the white-backed captives. 

No, Mikasa doesn't like that at all. 

They march the Russians a few blocks away from the base, no apparent destination in mind---the head of the formation simply turns corners at random, moving deeper into the city, until they hear a generally avoided sound: Titans, moving clumsily in the distance.

"Sir, I hear Titans up ahead," Eren points out, scanning the horizon. "Should we turn back?"

"Hardly, Jaeger. Titans are exactly what we're looking for." 

A hundred horrible scenarios play through Mikasa's head at once: Levi feeding the Russians to the Titans; Levi making them fight Titans bare-handed. Even the more outlandish predictions leave her on edge, but she keeps her mouth shut, pleased with the progress she's made in gaining her uncle's trust back. 

They come across a Titan two streets later, a ten-meter class beast with its eyes on the sky. The handlers of the captives kick the door of a laundromat open a hundred yards down the road, keeping quiet to avoid drawing its attention just yet. Uneasy, Mikasa follows them up the stairs, through an apartment sitting over the laundromat, and then onto the building's roof. 

"This should do well," Levi calls. The soldiers salute, several of them using their 3DMG to grapple the building nextdoor. Levi has the Russians' blindfolds removed but leaves their hands tied, forcing them to kneel in a neat line across the rooftop. With them situated, he turns and follows his soldiers onto the roof of the adjacent building, leaving the captive Russians as a buffer between his men and the now-approaching Titan.

Mikasa's blood runs cold and hot in equal measure as she understands what Levi's intention is---to dangle the Russians in front of the Titan, force information out of them, and in all likelihood, allow them to be eaten. 

Fortunately, Armin saves her from having to ask the hard questions. "Sir, are we going to let the Titan devour the prisoners?" 

"No, Arlert, but they don't have to know that. Hopefully that great beast will get them talking." 

Mikasa doesn't entirely believe that he'll rescue the prisoners from the Titan, but she's in no position to argue without bringing suspicion down on her shoulders. She stands among the other soldiers as Levi speaks to them. 

"We're going to ask a few questions. Once the Titan gets close, whether they've talked or not, we'll step in, but we've got to let the fuckers sweat." 

He now goes to the edge of the roof, raising his voice for the Russians' benefit. "This is all pretty simple. We ask the questions, and you answer them. Unless you want that Titan to catch you instead---I wonder which one of you it would eat first?" 

Mikasa catalogs their reactions, one at a time. The tall one, Fubar, sweats bullets; Braun's eyes stare at a spot above their heads, jaw set; Ymir's head is bowed; Annie looks bored. The Titan up the street comes closer with a curious air. 

"He looks hungry," Levi notes, resting his hands on his hips. "Better make this quick if you don't want to be dinner." 

Braun mutters something that sounds like "Fuck you," but the distance and noise of the Titan's footsteps stifle his words. Levi turns his eyes to the boy, tilting his head. "You're in no position for obscenities, Corporal Braun. Now, where were we?" (The Titan is now less than twenty yards away.) "Ah, right. Care to tell me your mission here, or is the alternative in this situation more attractive to you?" 

The four Russians remain silent, accenting the steadily growing _thump_ of the Titan's footsteps. Levi clucks his tongue. "He's not too far off now. Can you really afford to keep your mouths shut?" 

Braun turns his small eyes on Annie, muttering something that the Americans can't hear. She doesn't look at him, but her mouth moves slightly in reply. He takes a breath that they can see even from a rooftop away. Finally, the young man turns to face his captors, his voice strong enough to carry but his features trampled with disgust. "When we arrived in your country, our commander told us that our mission was to kill all American soldiers."

Silence falls but for the startlingly close Titan's approach. Several of the Americans begin swearing under their breaths, waiting on Captain Levi, who says nothing, still watching the Russians curiously.

"That's all we have to say," Braun bites, his eyes falling. 

Armin takes a half-step towards Levi, his gaze pinned to the Titan. "Captain, the Titan's---should we kill it?" 

Levi still doesn't speak. Antsy, Mikasa follows Armin's lead, stepping out of the line of soldiers. "Sir, the Titan is going to kill them." 

On the other roof, the Russians are now throwing anxious looks over their shoulders; the Titan is less than three buildings away, its large eyes glued to the easy prey. Levi turns his back on them. "You say that like it's a bad thing." 

Mikasa feels her usual composure slip, appalled by Levi's coldness. "You promised to save them." 

"Think of it this way, Ackerman. If it were the other way around, do you think they would save us?" 

She knows the answer to that question. They all do. 

It doesn't affect her decision in the slightest. 

She doesn't register her legs carrying her until Levi shouts her name and reaches for her, but she weaves out of his grasp with ease and takes a running leap off the edge of the roof, landing on the next one by centimeters just as the Titan begins to reach a hand towards the Russians.

Her hook burrows into the tough skin on the side of the Titan's neck, providing a solid anchor when she hits the gas and speeds in its direction, arcing over its shoulder and slashing her blades through its weak spot before it can even think to reroute its hand and catch her. The creature's blood fountains from the incision mark as it stumbles backwards and then falls, collapsing against a building across the street and utterly demolishing it. Mikasa lands lithely on the rooftop a few feet to the Russians' right.

As much as she doesn't want to, she turns away from the gaping captives and looks to her gaping comrades.

Levi is the only one whose expression remains relatively the same, but even he has a knowing glint of disappointment in his dark eyes. Armin's face is grave, understanding working over his features, and Eren's jaw is slack. 

"Ackerman." Levi's lips move but the rest of his face is akin to stone. "What are you doing?"

She buys herself time to think, sheathing her swords in the blade carriers hanging at her hips. The noise is piercing and metallic in the sudden stillness. "I was following my original orders, sir." 

The soldiers bristle. Technically, she had permission to act. It's enough to clear their suspicions of her, but she can tell that Levi, if anything, is all the more distrusting. Eren and Armin exchange worried looks behind his back. 

Levi eventually swivels his searing gaze away from her, addressing his soldiers. "Let's get back to base before the sun goes down. Get the Russians." 

Before the Americans cross the distance between them, Mikasa spares a glance at the Fubar, Braun, Ymir, and Annie Leonhardt, all staring at her with a mixture of emotions. The boys are critical; Ymir's face is twisted with confusion. Annie betrays nothing, as usual. 

"You're welcome," Mikasa murmurs, before pulling her scarf over her nose and walking away.

* * *

She does her best to avoid Levi when they return to the base, but there's no escaping her teammates. 

"What the hell was that about?" Eren hounds her, matching her stride. "They just said they were sent here to _kill us_ and you saved their lives?" 

"Orders," she says tiredly, convincing neither of them. 

"It's about that Russian girl, isn't it?" Eren eyes her closely. "What is your deal with her?" 

She glares back. "There is no deal. Levi said to cut the Titan down before it ate them, and I did that." 

Eren barks something unintelligible and storms off to grab dinner. Armin stays, to Mikasa's dismay; he's far more perceptive than Eren will ever be. 

"It is about her, isn't it?" he asks, fixing her with a shrewd look. "It's always been about her." 

"That has nothing to do with it," she says, but even she can't believe the lie. 

They stop at the end of a hallway, facing each other down. Armin puts a steadying hand on the wall. "Why do you keep rescuing her? You're only making Levi more and more suspicious." 

She crosses her arms, wincing when the new tattoo on the underside of her wrist presses against her other arm. "If I knew why I kept doing it, I'd probably have figured out how to _stop_ doing it." 

"You know why, deep down." He glances back down the hallway, face clouded with thought. "You know, but you're too afraid to let yourself really think about it." 

She wants to demand what the hell that's supposed to mean, but he walks away, leaving her with a dark glare and a lot to think about.

* * *

They're set to leave for Washington the next afternoon, meaning the whole morning leading up to departure is spent in preparation. The horses are tended to, preened for the journey ahead, and carts are brought out of storage for carrying supplies. The more strategically-minded soldiers draw up a careful route that avoids most known dangers and roadblocks. General Smith tries (and fails) to establish contact with the White House, but when he comes up empty-handed, the mission goes on undeterred.

Levi orders that the Russians be taken with them on the trip---he doesn't trust leaving them in the base when most of the finer soldiers are gone, and he hypothesizes that the Washington bigwigs will have new and innovative ways to get them talking. Mikasa is both relieved and dejected by this, glad to have Annie in her sight but wary of what Levi's got brewing in his sharp mind.

The specialists of the 104th are all jumpy as the sun arcs closer to noontime. It's their first out-of-state expedition; none of them know what to expect outside of their borders. Long distance communication is as rare as blue skies now---for all they know, the rest of America was razed by missiles or torn apart by civil disputes.

"I'm just glad we're finally going to see what's really out there," Marco sighs, buckling a blade carrier to his hip. "Wondering for so long has been killing me." 

Jean shrugs as he replaces his dulled blades. "Hopefully there's still something left to wonder about." 

"Man, don't be such a downer." Connie finishes gearing up and rubs his blade carriers appreciatively. "I'm sure everything's going great over there. I mean, it's D.C. They've gotta be better off than us." 

"He's got a point," Mina ammends, tugging a rifle's strap over her head. 

Jean's rebuttal is silenced when a senior officer pokes his head into the outbuilding, taking stock of them. "104th specialists, right? Come on. You're stationed in the back." 

They follow him outside, towards the back gate where the expedition is forming. Levi, Erwin, and the other higher-ups are in the front of the formation this time around, the soldiers dropping in rank the farther back you go. Mikasa, Eren, and Armin mount their horses and ease into the train of soldiers. From atop the saddle, she can see the Russian prisoners a few paces ahead. They sit facing each other in a pick-up truck's bed, ankles and wrists bound.

Armin catches her staring and nudges her calf with his heel. "Focus on the mission." 

She snaps her eyes up immediately, embarrassed. "Right." 

Last checks are performed on the supplies, the soldiers, and the prisoners. When everything gets the greenlight, the gates are rolled open and Erwin starts to move, the expedition matching his speed.

"Long trip this time around," Eren notes, impatience already crawling under his skin. 

"We'll get there when we get there," Armin sighs, rolling his eyes at his teammate.

"Yeah, yeah. Would be really nice if airports were still running right about now, though."

* * *

The city fades and long highways replace it, endless stretches of asphalt that splinter under the weight of a full battalion. They encounter few dangers along the way---civilians are still bruised from the ambush a few nights back, and the Titans are conveniently missing from their chosen route. The highway is even more relaxing; open and wide, they fear no sudden attacks, knowing they'll be able to spot an enemy with ease on the road.

The sky is rapidly turning black by the time the order to stop ripples back from the front. Erwin halts the expedition when a dilapidated motel appears on the side of the highway, deciding it to be the ideal place to rest for the night. The horses are tied together in a long chain, to prevent any of the animals from wandering off, and a handful of veterans are assigned to keep watch for the night, with promise of rest come first light. 

The Russians, in a twist of cruel fate, are passed off on the specialists---the senior officers are eager to get a good night's sleep without the responsibility of watching the prisoners, and immediately look to pass that duty off on their inferiors. A warrant officer she doesn't recognize hauls the Russians over and assigns them to pairs of specialists, a satisfied smirk on his face. 

The warrant officer and his partner pass Fubar off on Jean and Marco, entrust Braun with Eren and Armin, hand Ymir to Christa and Mina, and, in the cruelest twist of all, gives custody of Annie to Mikasa and Sasha. Fully smiling now, the warrant officer spares them some handcuffs for their troubles and strides away.

Mikasa nearly starts to protest, but doesn't see how; Levi is already inside of the motel anyway, and only Armin is there to throw a disapproving glance her way as he and Eren tug Braun into the dusty building. 

Sasha, cheerful as ever, helps Mikasa lead Annie inside. The first floor rooms are all occupied by older soldiers, so they tramp upstairs, claiming a room that desperately needs a cleaning. They untie Annie's limbs and cuff her wrist to a non-functioning radiator, satisfied in its solid attachment to the wall. 

"I'm beat," Sasha yawns, flopping down on the bed. A cloud of dust rises with the sudden movement. She sits up, stifling a sneeze. "Jeez, that's gross." 

She gets up and explores the tiny bathroom, disappearing inside and whistling in appreciation. "It ain't pretty but it's a hell of a lot cleaner. Hey, Mikasa, you wanna take first watch? I could use the sleep." 

Mikasa purses her lips but agrees nonetheless. Sasha bustles back into the room proper and drags the duvet off the bed, taking it into the hallway and shaking the worst of the dust off, then lugging it back inside and stuffing it through the bathroom door. 

"What are you doing?" 

Sasha leans back, a proud grin on her face. "There's no saving those sheets from all that dust, honey. When you get tired, wake me up for second watch. I'll be in the bathtub." 

She shuts the bathroom door behind her. Within minutes, her trademark snores threaten to burst through into the room. 

Mikasa stares at the closed door for a while, her brain mulling over a hundred things at once---what Levi would say if he knew her current situation, how intensely she can feel Annie Leonhardt's eyes burning into her back, how nerve-rackingly alone they are.

"Are you just going to stand there all night?" 

Mikasa stiffens. It's almost exactly what Annie said to her the night they met in Paley Park. 

She revolves in place sluggishly, anything but eager to meet Annie's eyes. Her solution is to sit down on the radiator Annie's chained to, keeping her from being able to look her in the eye without craning her neck awkwardly. 

Annie cranes her neck awkwardly anyway. "That's new." 

She's referring to the clan tattoo on Mikasa's wrist, nearly covered by her sleeve. Mikasa draws her sleeve up and studies it as well, finding it easier than eye contact. 

"What's it mean?" 

"Peace," Mikasa says, although her mother never fully explained what the lotus of their clan symbolized. 

Annie's eyebrows come down in contemplation, but she doesn't ask any more questions, instead bringing her free hand up to trace the swirls of the design. The skin is still slightly raised from the intrusive needle, and the feather-light touch sends a shiver down Mikasa's spine. Annie's eyes flick to Mikasa's face curiously when she catches the small movement. 

"Before you ask," Mikasa says, eye firmly fixed on the ceiling, "I don't know why I killed that Titan." 

Annie hums, brushing her fingers over the blades of the lotus tattoo. "I wasn't going to ask."

"You weren't?" 

"No." Her index finger follows the blue-ish trail of a vein until it vanishes from sight. "I've given up on trying to understand any of this. You should, too." 

"Tempting," Mikasa says, trying to keep her head straight under the influence of Annie's unfairly soft fingers. "But I do have a question for you." 

"Oh?" 

"When your friend said that your mission was to kill Americans," she begins, voice hitching, "he was lying, wasn't he?" 

Mikasa knows she's right when Annie's hand goes still. "How did you figure that out?" 

"Three of my friends could have been shot by Russians a few weeks ago, but were let ago. I doubt your comrades are the type who disobey orders so willingly." 

Annie considers this, then shakes her head slightly. "I remember. Bodt, Kirschtein, and Renz. It was Bertholdt's idea to let them live, and Reiner went along with it, of course. We hadn't even thought of it when your bastard uncle waved us in front of that goddamn Titan." 

"Braun was a convincing liar, at least," Mikasa says, shrugging one shoulder.

"Tell him that sometime. It'll warm his heart." 

She's surprised by the smile that flits to her face before she can think to stop it. Working her expression back to neutrality, she sinks from her perch on the radiator and onto the floor, shoulder to shoulder with the handcuffed girl next to her. 

"Are you in trouble with your uncle?" Annie asks, a sideways glance accompanying the question. 

"I think so." Mikasa leans her head back against the radiator, shutting her eyes. "I've been avoiding him, but it's only a matter of time before he backs me into a corner. I don't know what I'll say to him." 

Annie is quiet, not versed enough in dealing with Levi to offer advice. She settles for, "You can always tell him to go fuck himself."

A startled laugh falls from Mikasa's lips, the underlying grin fading when it occurs to her how foreign laughter feels. 

"Are we ever going to talk about your methods of interrogation?" Annie pries, an eyebrow climbing. "They were interesting, if not ineffective." 

A blush threaten to surface at the mention of their strange and unwarranted kiss, but Mikasa keeps her cool, not looking at Annie to help her cause. "It was a spur-of-the-moment reaction." 

"I see." Annie moves like lightning---one minute, she's sitting motionless, and the next, she's thrown her leg over Mikasa's and straddled the American's hips, her one free hand contouring itself to the side of Mikasa's neck. "Spur-of-the-moment like this? Or like this?"

This time, when they kiss, there is no blood, no Levi, no broken noses---just soft lips and wandering hands, shared heat, and the lingering tone of desparation that hides under their skin day and night. Mikasa feels as if all of the air has been sucked out of the room, and notes a beat later that she doesn't mind.

When they break away, Annie rests her head against Mikasa's neck, her nose buried in the scarf that beat her there. Mikasa takes the blessing of having Annie's eyes elsewhere and fights her breathing back into a normal pattern. 

"You should probably wake your friend up," Annie says against her shoulder, her lips hot even through the material of her shirt. 

Mikasa considers this, then scoots closer to the part of the radiator where the end of the handcuff is latched, giving Annie a little more range of motion. "I wouldn't be a very good friend if I woke her up for no reason." 

Annie opens her mouth quizzically, but Mikasa cuts her off, holding her by the hips and flipping them around so that Annie's the one pinned against the radiator. She kneels between Annie's legs and catches her wrists, trapping them against the radiator as well. 

"Well, look who's feeling primal," Annie comments, but it's too breathy and not sarcastic enough to sound anything but aroused. 

Mikasa shuts her up with another kiss, feeling bold and pushing her tongue into Annie's mouth. The girl surprises them both by groaning low in her throat. Encouraged, Mikasa frees Annie's hands and lets her own hands trail down the curve of Annie's ribs, resting them on her narrow hips. 

Annie uses her new freedom to cup Mikasa's neck with her cuffed hand, the other hand scratching paths down Mikasa's back. Her fingers have just slipped under the hem of her shirt when Mikasa pulls away, panting. 

"We should stop." 

"You're probably right," Annie agrees, but her tone and expression are a stark contrast to her words. 

Mikasa returns to their shoulder-to-shoulder position, patting her shoulder to invite Annie to rest her head there again. She complies willingly. 

Annie's last words before falling asleep are, "This only makes this harder, doesn't it?" 

Mikasa doesn't say anything, but they both know the answer is an undeniable _yes_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> breaking news sasha braus just got nominated for lesbian enabler of the year


	11. i don't think i'm coming home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kind of porn-y interlude in here but it's hella watered down bc i'm not interested in changing this fic's rating, if y'all request a full smut one-shot posted separately i could probably figure that out later idk

She wakes with her arm around Annie's waist and Annie's head tucked under her chin, the girl's breathing deep and even under the influence of sleep. Lifting the hand on Annie's shoulder just so, she peeks at her watch and makes a face. Nearly five in the morning. Not long before the soldiers will start to wake up, including Sasha, who is (fortunately) still snoring in the bathroom. 

Mikasa shifts away, realizing how incriminating her current position is, only to be thwarted by Annie's arm tightening around her ribs. She mumbles something incoherent. 

"I have to get up," Mikasa tells her, shaking her shoulder gently. "It wouldn't be good for either of us if someone poked their head in right now." 

"What time is it?" 

"Nearly five." 

Her grip only tightens. "Few more minutes won't hurt." 

Not much arguing with that. She tucks Annie back into the cavity of her arms and watches the door, ears peeled for footsteps or a break in Sasha's snores. 

Like most good things in her life, the moment of intimacy comes to an end. Voices trail from other rooms, and someone walks sluggishly outside her door. Annie doesn't protest this time, letting her hands fall slack when Mikasa disentangles from her embrace and goes to the bathroom door. She knocks loud enough to wake Sasha. 

The girl bursts out of the bathroom a moment later, hair ruffled with sleep. "It's almost six! Why didn't you wake me up to take the next watch?" 

"I must have fallen asleep," Mikasa lies easily. She gestures to Annie, still handcuffed to the radiator, glaring at them sleepily. "It's alright. She's still here."

"Oh, good. _That_ could have ended badly." 

Outside, they deposit a handcuffed Annie with the rest of the Russian prisoners and mount their horses, falling back into place with the other soldiers. Washington is only a few hours away now, without any interruptions, and they're confident that they'll make it by early afternoon. What they plan to do in D.C. is far more complicated than getting there---having an audience with the President is easier said than done. 

It's not long after they set out again that Armin rides up next to her, his eyes searching hers for guiltiness. He goes for subtlety. "How'd you sleep?" 

"Very well," she replies, and she's not lying. 

"How did _she_ sleep?" he prods, pointing to Annie with his chin.

"I wouldn't know." 

"Hm," he says understandingly. He jerks his reins and returns to his original place, the suspicion in no way erased from his face.

* * *

The expedition passes through Philadelphia, or at least, what's left of it. 

Mikasa can tell immediately that a great fire raged through the city at one point. Cloying ash clogs gutters and hitches rides on the sparse breezes; the buildings are scorched black; abandoned vehicles on the road are charred beyond recognition. The cause of the fire is up to speculation---rioting, perhaps, or attack. She hopes it's the former.

"This place is empty with a capital E," Eren mutters, eyes shifting left and right as they move down yet another deserted street. "What do you think happened to all the people?" 

"Probably dead," Jean theorizes, his face warped into a scowl. "Those goddamn Russians are going to burn in Hell for this." 

Mikasa takes one look at the blackened landscape and felled buildings and says, "This already is Hell. And no one's burning." 

They fall quiet again, trying not to see. 

The rear of the expedition is just passing the mouth of a wide alley when faint cries reach her ears, and Mikasa comes to understand that Philadelphia isn't as deserted as they thought. 

She slows her horse's gait and strains her eyes through the shadowy alley, certain that the noise is coming from within. Eren stops next to her. "What is it?"

"I hear someone back there." 

The other specialists around them stop as well, prompting the senior officer a few paces ahead of them to turn his horse around. "Hey, what's the hold-up back there?" 

Eren, now hearing the cries as well, points down the alley. "Sir, we hear someone. It sounds like they're hurt." 

"This isn't a rescue mission, Jaeger. We've got to get a move on." But their faces remain unchanged, so the officer sighs and tugs his horse's reins. "Well, fine. Jaeger, Ackerman, go take a look. Catch up to us later. The rest of you, get back into formation." 

Mikasa and Eren nod dutifully and guide their horses off the main road, dismounting before entering the alley. Thick piles of ash coat the ground, almost unnaturally heaped. At the end of the passage, a small, frail figure huddles against the wall, its back turned to them and its shoulders shaking. 

They look at each other again. Eren's face is wide and earnest as ever, but unease curls in the pit of Mikasa's stomach. The noise of the passing expedition is fading rapidly. 

"Come on, Mikasa," he urges softly, turning away from her to advance down the alley. 

She connects the little incongruities of the scene a hair too late---the odd way that the ash is piled on the ground, the steel cable poking out at the end of the alley, the lone survivor keeping its face turned carefully away. Her heart leaps into her throat and she reaches a hand out to grab Eren's shoulder. "Eren, wait---" 

But his foot still moves, and things happen very fast: the ash on the ground displaces suddenly as Eren's boot steps right into a trap. Metal cable closes around his ankle and pulls. His back hits the ground with a nasty thump as the cable retracts through some unseen mechanism, dragging him bodily down the length of the alley. 

Everything in her body screams at her to save him. Her vows to protect him burn behind her eyelids as she tenses to spring forward, and then sting helplessly as arms close around hers, holding her in place. Her struggling is rewarded with an elbow to the back of her head, sending galaxies spinning in her vision. 

The figure at the end of the alley stands and pivots, the fake cries morphing into harsh laughs. It's a girl in her late teens, small and skinny enough to pass for a child. She smirks at Mikasa before turning her eyes on Eren, whose fingers tear at the steel cable around his ankle, trapping him. 

The girl kicks him, drawing back when he immediately lashes out at her. "My, you're feisty. And stupid. What kind of idiots leave the safety of their big group to help some poor, fragile little girl?" The last few words are paired with batted eyelashes and a faux expression of helplessness. 

"Let him go," Mikasa spits, barely having to look to her left and right to know that the men holding her arms are much bigger than her. 

"You're not giving orders here, Private Dumbass," the girl says, laughing again. "I am. And I say that you die first." 

The men holding her take this as a definitive order and wrench Mikasa closer to the girl, whose face is gleefully evil under the smears of ash and dirt on her skin. "You all carry such pretty toys. Rifles and blades always shine so nicely." 

She reaches a pale hand out and takes the hunting knife from Mikasa's thigh sheath, inspecting it with a tight smile. "Knives work well too." 

Mikasa tunes the girl's rambling out, analyzing the situation. Eren still can't get the cable off; that's going to take time, meaning she can't expect to break out of the men's grasp, grab Eren, and run. The alternative is simple: all of her captors have to die.

The operating device on her left side has fallen from the sheath under her arm during the commotion, leaving it dangling just centimeters from her hand. She flicks a glance at it before pretending to listen to the girl in front of her. Her arms are motionless by her sides, held in place by the men flanking her, but she thinks she can move her fingers. 

"Dumb, dumb, dumb," the girl is saying. She closes her eyes; Mikasa sees her chance. She stretches her fingers out and takes hold of the operating device, and clenches the trigger. 

The girl's monologue keens into a scream when the anchor fires from the mechanism at Mikasa's hip, the hooks burrowing into the flesh on the side of her stomach. The men are so shocked that their grip slackens momentarily; it's just enough for Mikasa to break free, withdrawing the anchor simultaneously in a splash of blood. 

The men shake off their confusion and turn on her, but she makes quick work of them---one is felled by her rifle, the other by a blade to the neck. The girl dies much slower, lying on the alley's floor with her hands pressed to her bleeding stomach, her mouth opened in an O of surprise. Mikasa takes the hunting knife back without comment, ignoring the way the girl reaches a hand to her pleadingly. 

Eren, with her help, finally manages to free himself from the clever trap, rubbing his ankle through his boot. "Shit, thanks." 

"Let's just go before more of them show up." 

Their horses are waiting anxiously on the sidewalk. They mount hurriedly and speed to a gallop, desperate to get back to the expedition. It's already several blocks away, and by the time they catch up to it, Philadelphia's city limits are nearly upon them. 

The specialists in the rear of the formation are dumbfounded---Eren is covered in ash, and Mikasa's gear has blood splatters all over it. She lets Eren excitedly give the story, captivating their comrades with a (slightly warped) retelling, and doesn't bother to correct him, too absorbed in the way that Annie's staring at her from further up the formation.

The Philadelphia natives' attack sets off a new round of conversation. Marco is spooked the whole way out of the city, looking over his shoulder nervously. "I mean, if those ones back there were brave enough to attack Eren and Mikasa, who knows how crazy the rest of them are?" 

"Dude, chill," Jean drawls, leaning back easily in the saddle. "Those fuckers attacked _two_ soldiers and couldn't even handle that. What the hell are they going to manage against a whole battalion?" 

"Jean's right, Marco." Mina offers a trademark smile. "We've got at least fifty trained soldiers around us. We'll be okay." 

"I _guess_. But if they, like, tip a building over on us I'm going to be so mad."

* * *

On a tree-lined highway again, they stop to let the horses graze and stretch their legs.

"How far till D.C.?" Eren asks, sitting down on the side of the road and stuffing a hand into his boot to massage his ankle. 

Armin looks at his watch. "Four or five hours, if nothing goes wrong. We're heading to the Pentagon first, since the Department of Defense is based there, and then General Smith is dead set on going to the White House." 

"What if the President's dead, man?" Connie asks, his eyes wide and his face pale. "What do we do then?" 

"We don't know if he's alive or dead right now, so when we do find out, what difference is it really going to make?" 

Connie ponders Armin's words. "Wow, I guess you're right." 

On the opposite side of the road, Christa dutifully stands watch over the prisoners, still sitting tight in the back of a cart. She tries to keep her face stern while she does this, but the Russians usually look back at her with unimpressed expressions.

The one with freckles penciled across her cheeks and nose stands up abruptly. On instinct, Christa whips her rifle up. The Russian raises her cuffed hands innocently. "Whoa, don't shoot, tiger. I have to pee." 

"Um," Christa stammers, at a loss. Mike Zacharius notices the situation and lends a much needed hand.

"Renz, take her out to the woods. If she tries to run, don't hesitate to shoot." 

"Um," she repeats, but the girl is already hopping down from the cart, raising an eyebrow expectantly. 

Christa motions for the Russian to go ahead of her, the muzzle of her rifle pinned to the back of her uniform as they walk. She guides them through several yards of forest until the road is no longer distinguishable, then takes a step back, clearing her throat awkwardly. "You can go ahead and, um, do your business." 

To her surprise, the girl laughs. "I just wanted to stretch my legs, kid. I don't have any 'business.'" 

"Well, in that case, let's go back---" 

"Hey, chill, alright?" The girl sits down against a mature tree and lets her chained hands fall between her knees. "A minute won't kill anyone." 

Christa frowns; she should brandish her rifle and raise her voice, establish dominance, but the thought is unappealing, and she settles for letting the muzzle point down at the ground. "Just a minute." 

"Name's Ymir, by the way," the Russian says, watching her closely. "And you're Christa Renz."

"You don't have to talk." 

"But I want to." Ymir's grin is several shades of playful. "Man, you look so scared and uptight all the time. Recently more than ever. What's your deal?"

Christa's hands tighten visibly on the grips of the rifle; the girl is unfairly perceptive. "I don't know what you're talking about." 

"Of course you do," Ymir says slyly. "You can't honestly think you're fooling anyone into thinking you're okay. You've been jumpy as hell for the whole trip." 

"How did you notice?" 

"How couldn't I? You've got Bambi eyes 24/7." 

Resisting the urge to blink self consciously, she shoulders her rifle and frowns. "Why are you watching me?" 

Ymir's next grin is in a gray area between inviting and predatory. "Why wouldn't I be?"

* * *

If Philadelphia was a ghost town, D.C. is a ghost continent. 

There's no wind, no skittering of rodents in the gutters and between buildings, no human voices fighting to be heard. Utter silence. Unnatural silence---the kind of quiet that even New York, broken and beaten as it is, couldn't muster. She's reminded briefly of Sector 9. 

The sound of horse hooves smacking cracked asphalt and the squeak of wheels comforts their taught nerves, but none of the soldiers feel even close to relaxed. The lack of government presence in the nation's capital is frightening; they've all been expecting armed troops and envoys to greet them at the edge of the city, but they enter Washington with no sign of other American troops. 

"They're probably patrolling closer to the Pentagon and the White House," Armin reasons, but his voice is high with nerves. "Sticking close to home in case anything goes wrong." 

"Or they're all dead," Jean says under his breath. Marco kicks him. 

A strong voice filters back to them from up ahead. "Approaching the Pentagon!" 

Everyone sits up a little straighter in the saddle, a trill of excitement transferring down the ranks to the specialists in the rear. Connie bounces up and down in the saddle as the buildings thin out and the streets get wider. They come to stop before a wide field, scattered with debris and smoking in some places. The expedition stops. 

"What are we doing here?" Sasha stands up in the stirrups, squinting over the heads of the motionless soldiers ahead of them. "Aren't we headed to the Pentagon?" 

Most of them shrug, but Armin's face goes the color of milk, his mouth falling open in a visible decrescendo. Mikasa turns to him, her hands clenching the reins with a sudden sense of dread. "Armin?" 

"This is the Pentagon," he whispers. "This is what's left of it." 

"Oh," she tries to say, but the word looses its footing on the climb out of her throat and nothing comes out.

Her palms feel clammy around the leather reins. A thousand realizations click in her mind; if the _Pentagon_ is destroyed, and D.C. is deserted, then the chances of the White House remaining untouched are slim to none. Meaning what, exactly? The Russians took over? The American government ran? Nearly every scenario is more bleak than the last.

They match the silence of the city expertly, waiting desperately for Erwin to address them, for some order to come out of this. Nothing changes. 

Gravely, Smith turns his horse around and begins to ride down the length of the formation, departing orders to squad leaders as he does. No one speaks but him. When he reaches the specialists in the rear, he stops the horse and looks them all in the eye. His voice is heavier than they've ever heard it. 

"We're proceeding to the White House. Keep your wits about you." 

Fifteen words and then he's pulling his horse away, expecting them to follow. They do---they're soldiers. But more faces are stricken than not. She can almost see the gears running overdrive in her comrades' heads, processing the hopeless situation as they reroute.

The White House is a fifteen minute walk from the remains of the Pentagon; on horseback, it's less than ten. She wishes the journey was longer---no one's eager to see the state of the capital, but it's their job, and it's one they're very good at.

What's immediately noticeable about the White House estate is the lack of gates: the wrought iron fence still surrounds it, but the gates are gone, torn off by some unknown assailant. 

Simultaneously, the four Russian prisoners put their heads down, and Mikasa understands that they never should have come here. 

A colonel stands up in the stirrups and puts a hand to his eyes, shielding them from the albeit weak sun. "The White House has been occupied, General." 

"How the hell do you figure?" a younger man snaps, his hands visibly shaking even from some distance.

The colonel only points, up to the roof, to the building's flagpole. It is not flying the stars and stripes. 

The Russian flag glares back at them.

Maybe she's just superstitious, but Mikasa swears she can _sense_ when something awful is going to happen, because in the precious seconds _before_ they're attacked, she makes peace with it. 

_"Hostiles spotted!"_ a second lieutenant screams, seconds before a bullet tunnels into the back of her head.

Mikasa jerks the reins with both hands. The horse rears back onto its back legs, spinning around and giving her a better look at the sudden change in the atmosphere. Her heart starts beating frantically. The Russians are everywhere---in the windows of buildings, in doorways, marching down from the White House, approaching from every angle. 

Their enemies set a trap, and the Americans have sprung it gloriously. 

Her rifle is in her hand before she even thinks to take it up; the barrel is pointed between a charging Russian's eyes in the same instant. Around her, the loose formation of the expedition disbands, and her comrades move in every direction, mixing into the waves of enemies fearlessly. She doesn't imitate them, not immediately.

Her mind is one deeply entrenched in logic. As a result, she can't help but acknowledge that their situation is essentially hopeless. Outnumbered three to one, trapped on all sides, and caught by surprise; she sees no way that this battle will be won. She steels herself for it nonetheless. Her job is not to judge the outcome of a battle, but to endure it.

Failing to fight would be an abysmal sin. 

A Russian darts closer with an automatic rifle rising in her hands, but she falls by a short burst of rounds from Mikasa's rifle just inches from her horse. A few yards away, an American grenade detonates, sending Russians flying in every direction. The bark of gunfire reverberates in her ears constantly, cheering her on as she shoots and slices anything that comes near her.

Jean shouts from her right. She whips her head around, immediately tugging her horse in that direction when she catches sight of him---fallen from the saddle and wrestling a Russian on the ground, fighting feverishly to keep the enemy's gun pointed away while still landing some punches. 

Mikasa clicks her heels and the horse responds, pushing her closer to Jean. She aims her rifle just as the Russian sees her and raises his own rifle; they pull the triggers simultaneously. Her round of bullets lands directly in the man's forehead. All of his rounds miss but one, a pesky slug that grazes her shoulder in the spot where it meets her neck, unprotected by the limited bullet proof vest.

She hopes the pain is superficial, cringing as warm blood starts to bubble in the wound, but guards Jean nonetheless while he swings back onto his horse, nodding gratefully before he gallops away. 

The fight is wild and overstimulating, the sting in her shoulder aggressive and demanding attention, but she _still_ somehow notices when the cart carrying the Russian captives overturns, spilling Braun, Fubar, Ymir, and Annie onto the road. A horse misses Ymir's skull with its stomping hooves by inches; she's certain that Fubar's arm is bleeding from a stray bullet. The prisoners are still handcuffed, and on a battlefield, this means certain death. 

Another flash of fire ignites in the side of her hip as a bullet grazes her; this time, she doesn't inspect the injury, knowing it will do nothing but discourage her. 

Across the road, Erwin Smith fights valiantly against ten Russians at once, never yielding, but he's a man who values his soldier's lives greatly over his own. When he roars, it reaches across the battlefield, cutting through the gunshots and screams and growls like a knife. 

_"Scatter! Just go, goddammit! Run!"_

She's standing still, stupidly, unsure of what to do. Eren tears past her on his horse, stopping only long enough to scream, "Get the hell out of here, Mikasa! Come on, let's run!" And he gallops away.

More Americans fall; others are captured; Mikasa makes a decision. 

Her horse seems to know her intention before she does. It's already leading her towards the prisoners before she's dug her heels in, and she makes it there safely, avoiding another grenade's blast radius as she does. Annie must sense her approach, because she rolls onto her side and meets her eyes with her usual challenging stare.

"Get on," Mikasa orders, holding a hand out when she pulls the horse to a stop. 

Annie's eyes don't waver, but her body language gives her away. Her shoulders rise a little in acceptance. She thinks on it, then gets awkwardly to her knees, then her feet, taking the offered hand with both of hers and climbing into the saddle. 

The one named Braun is dumbfounded. "What the hell? You're going to just leave us like this?" 

Mikasa considers, then reaches for the pistol holstered on the side of her horse's saddle, drawing it and then tossing it into Braun's waiting hands. "Do what you want." 

"What the fuck are you doing?" Annie's voice is surprisingly calm in her ear.

She rears the horse and turns towards the least populated escape route. "I know a losing battle when I see one."

Annie's response comes in the form of her bound hands winding themselves into the back of Mikasa shirt. Mikasa looks back at her expressionlessly and then whips the reins.

* * *

She expects chase all through the streets of D.C., but she's on horseback and the Russians are on foot; the voices of pursuers fade almost instantly. The eerie silence that permeates the city almost makes her wish for those voices to come back. 

Annie says nothing, and neither does she, both remaining tight-lipped as she slows her horse to a stop some several blocks away from the heart of the city. The street they've found is quaint and residential, with off-white stone houses glued together all along the sidewalks. 

She dismounts, helps Annie down, and ties the horse to a nailed-down window box, then kicks open the door of the first house she sees. Annie follows warily, her demeanor brightening visibly when Mikasa digs in her pocket for the key to her handcuffs and drops them into Annie's palm. 

No words still. Mikasa has nothing to say and no energy to say it; the left side of her body aches from gunshots, mourning the blood it's lost. She trudges into the kitchen and searches for a first aid kit; nothing. Tramping upstairs, she finds one in the master bedroom's attached bathroom, taking the red-cross-emblazoned box in hand and sitting down with a stifled groan. 

The vest comes off laboriously, her arm feeling the creeping reach of the gunshot wound. The shirt is even worse, discarded on the floor after she peels it away from the congealed mess on her shoulder, the whole process being horrifically unpleasant and sticky. Blood pools and then runs down her collarbone in hot trails. She's just begun rooting around in the first-aid kit for alcohol when she notices movement in the doorway. 

Annie appears in the way she usually does---without warning, an inevitable force. Her eyes are the only parts of her that move. "You were injured?"

"I'll be fine," Mikasa says, but she simultaneously drops the first aid kit, looking down at the scattered medical supplies with a note of surprise before realizing her hand gave out. 

"Don't be an idiot." Annie gathers a few necessary items from the floor and dumps them on the bedspread. For once, Mikasa has to crane her neck up to look up at her. "Let me see." 

She turns her face away and bares her injury, fists curling in the covers because she feels wholly vulnerable and because Annie's eyes have the same intensity and iciness behind them as a moving glacier. Skilled fingers clean the wound with stinging alcohol and press a bandage over it.

"That should hold." 

Mikasa makes an agreeing noise in her throat, wincing when Annie lets the roll of bandages fall and it knocks against the unattended trauma on the side of her hip. 

"What's wrong with you?" Annie's eyes follow the bandages' path and widen when she sees the bloodstains creeping across Mikasa's pants, severe enough to show even on black fabric. "Oh."

"I'll take care of it," Mikasa tries, but Annie's already reaching for the alcohol swabs again.

She pushes Mikasa back by her good shoulder, forcing her to lie down. "Don't move." 

She does as she's told, mostly because her muscles start to lock up as soon a feather-light touch comes down on the skin above her belt. Her shirt is crumpled just out of reach, and she desperately wishes she could put it back on. She doesn't dare move, though, not with Annie tugging her pants down an inch or two, just enough to reveal the wound sitting near the bottom of her hip.

The exposure isn't too drastic, but it's definitely a sensitive area, and soft fingertips aren't doing wonders for her concentration. 

"You're lucky," Annie says, her voice oddly strained. "It's not deep." 

Mikasa just nods, eyes fixed to the ceiling while the sting of alcohol suddenly ignites in her injury, followed by the grateful pressure of another bandage. 

"Done." But Annie doesn't move her hands from her hips, and Mikasa grudgingly admits that she doesn't want her to.

Things change in the span of a breath then; Annie leaves her position knelt beside the bed and climbs onto it instead, silencing Mikasa's budding question by crashing their lips together. It's a different kiss than the ones in the motel room—wilder, unabashed, challenging the world to find some wrong in it. 

It's hard, so hard, for Mikasa to think about her dead or dying comrades, the fall of her own nation, the Russian invaders. She can't think about anything with Annie's tongue pushing against hers or Annie's lips on her throat or Annie's hands dipping below her waist—can't think with Annie's small fingers tracing her lines and scars— _definitely_ can't think with Annie's mouth charting a path down her stomach, between her legs. 

She understands that nationalities and battle lines don't exist between sheets. 

On the cusp of orgasm, she isn't American and Annie isn't Russian; she's Mikasa Ackerman and a girl with glacier eyes is bringing her over the edge, and she's perfectly fine with that.

* * *

They lie on top of the covers afterwards, fully clothed again—soldiers can never be so vulnerable as to lounge half-clothed in a war zone—and Mikasa fits Annie snugly into the space between her arms, so naturally and comfortably that it astounds her. Neither of them sleep, but their breathing is slow and even enough to let them pretend. 

Annie isn't satisfied with lying to herself, though, and neither is she. It's not long before Annie sits up, straddling her hips and looking down at her with a guarded expression. 

"Don't you want to go looking for your friends?" she asks, eyebrows pulled low like she's anticipating an answer she won't like.

Mikasa turns her face away because that look does strange things to her stomach, focusing instead on the waning daylight fighting through the dirty window. "I'm going to get killed out there. They've taken over the city." 

_They_ —Russians. Annie's people. The moment of passion is gone now, and the lines in the dirt that separated them all along are back with full force.

"You can get out of here." Annie's hands go to the sides of Mikasa's neck, not aggressive, but supporting. "Just wait for it to get dark and leave." 

"Alone? How would I even get back home?" She puts her hands over Annie's, forcing herself to meet her eyes again. "And what about you?" 

Annie's lips are thin. "They're my comrades. They'll take me back." 

Mikasa can't berate Annie for choosing to go back to her brothers in arms—it's only logical. But it still hurts, somewhere.

"So this is goodbye?" 

The question percolates between them. _Goodbye_ has always been inevitable for them; it's hung in the back of their throats all the while, waiting to take center stage, and Mikasa's almost certain that its big scene is upon them. 

Annie opens her mouth to reply, shuts it, and leans down to kiss her deeply. 

It's almost perfect, if not for the sound of guttural voices outside and the distinct slam of a door being kicked in. 

They freeze, still connected at the lips, and then jolt back into survival mode. Russian voices are downstairs, slathering the lower floor with harsh shouts.

"The American is here somewhere—find them!" 

Mikasa takes a precious moment to sort her thoughts—footsteps are stomping towards the stairs now—then grabs Annie by the tops of her arms and pushes her away. She lowers her voice to an urgent whisper, eyes on the door. 

"Annie, hide." 

"What the hell? I'm not going to—"

She shuts her up with a hand over her mouth. "Yes, you are. Those soldiers aren't going to be very kind to you if they find us like this. Just hide, and don't come out until it's over." 

Annie doesn't have to ask what _it_ is. Her eyes dart to the door and then Mikasa's eyes, searching for another way and finding no miracle there. Her lips press briefly against Mikasa's palm before she slips down and under the bed, disappearing from view. 

Mikasa gets to her feet, limping a bit when the pain in her hip comes back to her, and brings her fists up; she's good in a fight, but by the number of distinct footsteps she can hear coming down the hall, she's badly outnumbered and already injured. 

There are six of them. All men, all dressed in wintry camouflage, all brutal. She knocks one off his feet before her legs are kicked out from under her and her back meets the unforgiving hardwood floor, and then they're on her like wild dogs. Fists are everywhere, and boots, and elbows. The blood runs in her eyes and nose and mouth, blinding and suffocating and muting her. Her head falls to the side. 

Annie is still curled under the bed, her eyes boring into Mikasa's from the space between her attackers' legs, and her gaze says more than she's ever spoken aloud since they've met. Mostly, it's an apology. Mikasa doesn't have to endure that look for very long.

* * *

She wakes up in a prison cell. 

A real prison cell—one wall is made of bars. A cot sits against one wall, a toilet and sink against the other. She's sitting against the third wall, eyes opening immediately on the sight of the cell door across from her. Not exactly a sight for sore eyes, she thinks. 

She tries to stand up, only to fall flat on her backside again. Craning her neck behind her, she sees that the chain of her handcuffs is looped under a pipe that runs along the bottom of the wall, holding her in place. 

_Shit._

Part of her hopes for the best, but the realistic part of her acknowledges exactly what's happening. This prison is under Russian control, and this time, she's the prisoner.

Her eyes are examining the handcuffs again when her cell door clangs open, and she whips her gaze back around to it.

One of the two visitors is a hardened commander with a ring of keys on his belt; the other is Annie Leonhardt.

She looks different—dressed in a clean uniform, hair neatly pulled back, weapons returned to her. But the real change is her face; it's back to its usual stoic mask, something that Mikasa hoped to chip away, eventually. 

The commander regards his captive coolly. "Leonhardt, entertain me." 

Annie nods respectfully and crosses the length of the cell. Mikasa shuts her eyes because she knows what comes next, and the first landing of Annie's boot on her unprotected abdomen is so anticipated, the pain is surreal. This doesn't last. Annie's blows start to hurt rapidly, making Mikasa wonder how many beatings she can take before she stops feeling them altogether.

The commander makes a bored noise in his throat; Annie regains his favor and interest in the entertainment by putting a hand over Mikasa's mouth and preparing to smash it back against the wall. She does this, but not before Mikasa presses a forgiving kiss to her palm. 

The Russian finally beckons Annie away, leaving the bloodied and battered prisoner in the cell. Before she goes, Annie looks back through the bars and raises her reddened knuckles to her lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was super late because band camp hit me like a truck, pls forgive me kiddos


	12. irony/iron bars

Mikasa drifts in and out of consciousness the first day in her cell. 

When she's awake, she's in pain. Someone's driving a fist into her face or squeezing her throat with rough fingers. Harsh voices offer harsh words, her own blood tries to drown her, her bones ache as if they want to burst out of her skin. Sometimes, Annie is there, but her face is shrouded with her responsibilities and she strikes without holding back.

So, she prefers unconsciousness. In her sleep, the pain is dulled like an old knife, and she breathes easier, the threat of Russian prison guards pushed far away. Annie is there often, and she doesn't hit her; she's a comforting presence in the foreground of her dreams, sometimes wrapping thin arms around her, other times sitting in silence. 

Her physical ailments are severe, but her emotional blows are competitive―she spends her time alone agonizing over the fate of her teammates, her uncle, and most of all, Annie Leonhardt, who she sees periodically and never fails to confuse her. Their short stint of something close to _peace_ , just before Mikasa was captured, sticks in her mind like wild game in a snare, and it's all she thinks about when she toes the line between sleep and consciousness.

Dreams are good, real life is bad. She tries to sleep as much as she can, but sometimes her body hurts too much to allow her brain this kindness.

* * *

It's the middle of the first night when Ymir stops by Christa's cell. 

She peers in at the girl through the bars, slinging her rifle over her shoulder and pausing in her rounds down the corridor. Christa's sitting in the middle of her cell's cot, back turned, arms looped around her knees. She looks so small, like she's going to keep folding into herself until she disappears altogether. Ymir debates, then wraps a hand around one of the bars, glancing up and down the dark hallway before speaking. 

"Hey. Hey, Renz." 

Christa flinches, throwing a wild glance over her shoulder, eyes wide and wet with tears she keeps pushing back. 

"Jeez, calm down." The mute terror on the American's face floors her.

"Please don't hurt me," Christa Renz says, turning to face her and scooting backwards on the bed. Ymir winces when she sees the girl's split lip and the dried blood on her face―definitely the work of Ymir's comrades. 

"I'm not gonna hurt you," she promises. Something protective and guilty is rising in her, but she pushes it down, never knowing who's listening. 

Christa doesn't look like she believes her, eyebrows pulled low. "Then what do you want?" 

"Just, shit, checking on you, or whatever," Ymir mutters, feeling her face grow warm. _What the hell is wrong with you, Ymir?_

"Um . . . why?" Christa asks, now growing confused. 

"Fuck, I dunno." She closes her eyes and rests her forehead against the bars, the cool metal helping her think. "Can you just, you know, not look like a kicked puppy? It's distracting." 

Christa glares. "Sorry, didn't realize my imprisonment was so inconvenient for you." 

"That came out wrong," Ymir says hurriedly, eyes snapping open.

"Aren't you going to hit me or something?" Christa eyes her warily, as far back on the bed as she can go.

"I told you I'm not going to hurt you, alright?" 

"Okay. Um, thanks." Christa sits cross-legged, more open than before. "Can I ask you something?" 

"Depends on the question."

Christa crawls closer and lowers her voice. "How did this happen?" 

"This, as in you being stuck in a prison cell, or this, as in your government folding?" Ymir already knows what the girl is referring to.

"The second one."

"I figured as much." Ymir sighs and rubs the back of her neck, turning slightly away and leaning her shoulder against the bars. "But I don't think I'm supposed to tell you that." 

Christa frowns. "Will you get in trouble?"

"Probably." Despite her predicament, Ymir finds herself wanting to help the girl nonetheless. "I can't tell you like this. Just . . . give me time to figure this out." 

* * *

The skin of Mikasa's wrists is worn raw by day two, rubbed away by the handcuffs encircling them. The wounds ooze lazily and drip warm blood into her palms. 

"You have a stoic face, little girl," the Russian captain says, crouching down in front of her. He wields the knife in his hand like a conductor's baton, accenting his words with swishes of the blade. "I'm sure you are very beautiful when you smile." 

She says nothing, meeting his eyes with the kind of indifference she shares with her uncle. This only amuses him. The knife flicks again. 

"How would you like to smile forever, American?" 

The knife wedges itself into her mouth, the taste sharp and metallic and deadly. Grinning serenely, the captain maneuvers it up against the inside of her cheek, pushing until she swears it's going to rip right through, then stops. Behind her back, her bound hands start to shake, but she keeps her face composed. 

"Enough, Pavlov." 

They both freeze, turning their attention to the doorway, where a new, grizzled Russian commander stands. He leans against the bars with a look of distaste. "Leave the child alone." 

"Always ruining the fun, Korev," the one called Pavlov sighs. He retracts the knife slowly, applying enough pressure to ink a tiny cut into the corner of her mouth as he does so. Blood bubbles and then falls in a rivulet, dripping off her chin and onto her torn uniform. "We'll work on the smile later, little doll." 

He licks the blade with a predatory wink and backs off, leaving her alone with the commander named Korev. 

"Specialist Ackerman, yes?" he asks, moving forward. 

She nods, knowing that any verbal reply would agitate the new injury on the inside of her mouth. 

"And your uncle is the one they call Captain Levi?" 

This nod is more hesitant.

"I had hoped so." He turns over his shoulder and calls to someone out in the corridor. "Bring him in." 

She sits up as straight as she can as two more soldiers drag Levi inside and push him down onto his knees, moving away and letting Korev take over. He gives them appreciative nods and turns to Levi. 

"Captain," he says, hands on his hips. "I have a few questions for you."

"She doesn't need to be here," Levi says flatly, eyes shifting briefly to Mikasa before returning to the commander.

Korev smiles. "Ah, but she does, Captain. Think of her as incentive to answer honestly and promptly." 

Oh, yes, she understands quite well why Levi was brought here.

"Don't do something you'll regret," Levi snarls.

"I should say the same to you." Korev holds his arms out as if showing off a grand work of art. "You have no power here, Captain. Your country is mine. _You_ are mine. So, you'll answer any questions I pose to you, or you're going to find out what the inside of your niece's stomach looks like." 

It's all a game of poker, really, and they've mastered their poker faces. The weight of the death threat doesn't show on either of their expressions. Intrigued, Korev studies them both. 

"Such hardened people," he remarks. Shrugging, he looks down at Levi. "So be it. Let's get back to business, shall we?" 

"What do you want?" 

"I want to know everything you've learned about those creatures you call Titans. All the data, all the reports. Everything." 

The cell is filled with tense silence then. Mikasa scans Levi's face for answers, but he only raises an eyebrow. 

"Why? I saw no Titans in this city." 

Korev moves without warning, kneeing Levi in the chest with a grunt. "My reasons aren't your concern, pig. You will tell me everything."

Levi purses his lips, silent, and Mikasa braces herself when Korev turns to her and raises his fist. The punch is underhanded, knocking her head back against the wall. There's no recovery time; he's already drawing his fist back again when she's barely registered the first blow, and the second one is all the worse. 

"Are you feeling more inclined to open your mouth, Captain?" Korev prods.

Mikasa doesn't have to urge Levi to keep his mouth shut; he does that on his own, and she reaps the consequences. 

_No hard feelings, Levi._

"Still keeping your secrets, no?" Korev rubs his split knuckles; Mikasa spits blood onto the floor. 

Levi doesn't respond, but his lip quivers, just a little. 

"Vigilant." Korev looks to one of the soldiers by the door and nods, one hand going to his belt and retracting a hunting knife. "Bring me the torch." 

The soldier passes him a handheld blowtorch. He lights it, the blue flame bursting from the tip with a low roar, then holds the blade of the knife over the flame, a slow smile creeping over his face. 

"Perhaps you need a little more motivation." 

When he takes the blowtorch away, the blade glows a malicious red, and Levi's eyes are a thousand shades of dark.

Korev holds the blade close to her neck―not close enough to touch, but close enough for her to feel the heat rolling off of it, close enough for her to hope, for the first time, that Levi opens his mouth. He doesn't. 

"Interesting," Korev notes. "You are a tough nut to crack, Captain. But not impossible."

The blade makes contact, and for the first time in quite a while, Mikasa screams. 

It doesn't break the skin―the heat alone is agonizing in its own right, and when the blade _does_ penetrate the side of her neck, just so, the pain is so intense that her vision cartwheels and her hearing cuts out a few times, like unplugging a cable from the back of a TV. Red hot blood bubbles in the shallow cut and dribbles down into her collar. She screams until she doesn't realize she's screaming, and even when the knife is pulled away, it feels like it's still wedged in her skin.

"That's unfortunate for her," Korev says, when her shouts keen off into gasps. "How many more cuts can a girl endure before there's nothing left to cut, do you wonder?" 

"Don't, tell them, anything," she pants, when she sees Levi's resolve waver. 

Korev raises his eyebrows. "Tougher than I thought. But even the strongest break, Specialist." 

Levi bares his teeth. "You don't have to do this." 

"Oh, but I do, Captain. Until you cooperate, this is exactly what I have to do." 

She's been stabbed before―it hurts, but it's familiar. Being stabbed with a white hot blade is not familiar. 

She's never realized how loud she can yell until a Russian commander spears a burning knife into her shoulder.

* * *

In the end, Levi breaks. 

He agrees to tell everything, and they take him away to drain the information from him. Korev leaves last, smiling serenely at her, shaking and bloodstained as she is. Her shoulder doesn't bleed much―the wound's cauterized―but it hurts to high heavens, whether she moves or stays perfectly still, whether she takes stuttering gasps or holds her breath until her head swims.

Part of her wants to contemplate why the Russians care about Titans, but it's quickly silenced by the part of her that wants to wallow in her injuries. Elevated thought is hard to sustain when every pain she's experiencing fights to be the worst one. 

The corridor outside her cell darkens eventually, the only signal to her that night has fallen, and she relaxes minutely. The Russians rarely bother their prisoners after the sun goes down, meaning she can let her guard down for a few precious hours. 

Sleep is out of the question, so she's wide awake late that evening when soft footsteps grope the silence, stirring her from her hazy thoughts. 

"Are you awake?" 

Oh.

Annie has both hands wrapped around two bars of the cell door, clenched tight enough to force her knuckles up against her skin. They make eye contact through the gloom. 

"I'm awake," Mikasa says, her voice grating and abused, but somehow, still there, still persisting.

"Good. Good." Annie shifts her weight, appearing to teeter on the edge of a tough decision. Her choice shows in her eyes when she makes it. "Just be quiet, alright?"

"Why―" 

She shuts her mouth when Annie unlocks the cell door and slides it open just enough to slip through, taking one last look up and down the hallway before she does. She's bright in the dark, all pale skin and white clothes and blonde hair. 

"Why are you here?" Mikasa tries again. 

"Shut up." Annie drops to her knees in front of her, takes Mikasa's face in her hands, and kisses her.

Mikasa's split lip protests, as does her bruised cheekbone under Annie's fingers, and she pulls away. "We shouldn't―not here―"

"I don't care." She shuts her eyes with the look of someone who's running out of options. "I just―" 

_Need this_ , she mouths, or at least, that's what Mikasa interprets. She doesn't turn her head away when Annie leans in again.

* * *

Ymir unlocks Christa's cell in the morning with a triumphant grin. "Come on, Renz." 

"What? Where are we going?" Nervous, Christa unfolds from her seat on the bed and takes a few steps forward.

"You wanted answers, right?" Under her breath, because anyone could be listening. Then, at a normal volume: "I ask the questions here, prisoner, now move."

So Christa does as she's told, head bowed, walking slightly in front of Ymir, who takes quiet pleasure in playing this role. 

Ymir prods her further into the bowels of the prison, to the holding cells that the Russians don't utilize. It's their best chance of being uninterrupted, at least, so Ymir feels comfortable disclosing somewhat classified information there. She sits on the edge of an abandoned security desk, waiting for Christa to turn a chair right side up and settle in it. 

"Are you sure we're safe here?" the girl asks, flicking nervous glances at the door. 

Ymir leans back on her hands, digging her heels into the front of the desk to center herself. "We're fine. No one comes down here."

"If you say so." The grave fear returns to her face as she remembers their task. "Are you going to tell me what happened?" 

"I guess," Ymir sighs. "Too late to go back now."

She pauses, searching for the right words, the right syllables to explain the force with which the Russians took over, the lack of resistance put forth from the Americans. 

"I was in New York when this happened," she reminds Chrisa. A disclaimer. "But I've read the reports. It sounded like . . . like it wasn't even a fight. There wasn't a big battle. We just―took over. Hardly any Americans were there to defend their capital. It was almost too easy, apparently. No casualties on our side."

Christa is white-faced for reasons Ymir doesn't totally understand. "You―you okay, kid?" 

"What about the President?" she asks, nothing moving but her lips. 

"The President?" Ymir thinks back to the reports she read over. "He escaped the siege, I think. But it didn't matter. We'd already taken D.C., so no one went after him." 

She looks relieved and worried at the same time, a miraculous feat, but Ymir doesn't have much time to marvel on the girl's expressions. "Shit, we need to get upstairs. The guard rotation is about to start and my shift is almost over." 

She leads Christa Renz back upstairs, manhandling her a little on the way back to the cell, for good measure. No one looks twice. The Russians are lax about how the prisoners are treated―as long as it's relatively uncomfortable for the Americans, the higher-ups approve wholeheartedly.

Before Ymir has finished reattaching her keys to her belt, Christa gets a quiet word in. "Thanks for telling me. I know you could get in trouble for this, so really, thanks." 

"Don't mention it." 

_Seriously, don't mention it._

* * *

Annie has one responsibility: to stand watch from midnight to six in the morning in the west corridor. It should be easy. Just take up position, stare down the hallway, wait for the sun to come up. But it's not easy, not with Mikasa Ackerman in the first cell to her left. Not with senior officers barging in every so often, encouraging her to help them beat on an unlucky American. 

It's the early morning hours that she prefers, when the night sky is still knocking on the sparse windows and her superiors are fast asleep. She can sit cross-legged on the floor and do her watching from there. She can, occasionally, spare glances in Mikasa's direction, who's usually asleep, propped awkwardly against the wall. 

But some nights, she's _not_ asleep, and on the sixth night of the Americans' imprisonment, Mikasa is wide awake and looking at her with steel eyes.

Annie wishes it otherwise, but every time she slips a glance in that direction, Mikasa's gaze is unwavering, daring her to do something about it. So she does. 

Nothing moves at this time of night, nothing breathes, and it's almost difficult to break the stillness when she stands and walks evenly to the cell. Mikasa raises her eyebrows but doesn't move, still chained to the pipe. 

"What do you want?" Annie asks, half-afraid of the answer. 

"Nothing I can have," she replies, shrugging one shoulder―only one, because its neighbor is nursing a stab wound.

Annie feels the same way, most of the time.

"Nothing I can give you," she says, but her hand still strays to the keys hanging on her belt, wanting to succumb the way she did a few nights ago. 

Mikasa Ackerman expects this, and nods sagely. "Do what's best for you." 

"But I―"

The sentence stops there, because its ending doesn't fit―the world they live in has no use for those three little words, and she can't remember the last time she's heard them spoken. 

Yes, _I love you_ isn't appropriate these days. 

"I hate you," she says instead. It's the closest thing.

From the look on her face, she thinks that Mikasa gets her meaning nonetheless.

* * *

"General Smith," Korev says, a comfortable smile on his face. "What a pleasure."

One of Erwin's eyes is swollen shut, and his hands are chained over his head, and the inside of his mouth permanently tastes like blood, but he still draws himself as much as he can and answers in his usual strong voice. "The pleasure is all mine, Commander." 

"I'm sure you have many questions," Korev anticipates, perching on the edge of the unused cot. 

Erwin watches him carefully, hands curling into fists. "That's right. But will you answer them, is the question." 

"I don't see why not." The commander crosses one leg over his knee and folds his hands on top of it. "Fire away, General." 

Erwin knows that he has no reason to believe anything Korev tells him, but he doesn't see the harm in asking. "Why are you keeping us here?" 

"Why not?" Korev laughs heartily. "Killing you all is well within my power, but it's far more entertaining this way. I can extract as much information as I can from your soldiers, just to be thorough, and when you all stop amusing us, we'll do away with you. Simple." 

His words make Erwin's blood run colder than it's run all week. As a general, it's his _duty_ to protect his soldiers at all costs, but he won't be able to save their lives like this, chained and beaten. All he has left is his tongue―he's going to have to lose his pride to make this work. 

"You have no reason to give me anything," Erwin begins, voice level, "but I'll beg if I have to." 

"Oh?" 

"Don't kill them." He swallows against the shame. "My soldiers―set them free. I led them into this mess, and I'll do anything to get them out." 

Korev chuckles again. "General, you _do_ understand that you have nothing to offer me, yes? No leverage?" 

"I understand that." Erwin keeps the agitation out of his voice. "I'm not asking you as a general, sir, I'm asking you as a human being. I'm asking for the lives of people, not soldiers."

"Touching," the man says. "Really touching. But you expect too much good in me, General, and I can be a very evil man." 

"I think we both can." Erwin's eyes darken. "Evil people can do good things, sometimes." 

Korev sighs. "I don't think we see things the same way, General, but I have a compromise." 

"Compromise?"

"Indeed." Korev stands and faces Erwin, his hands resting behind his back. "You want your soldiers' lives―I can't promise them all. But would you give some, for the lives of many?" 

Erwin doesn't like the sound of it, but he tries nonetheless. "Go on." 

"Your senior officers stay here, in this prison, and my men do what we wish with you," the commander offers. "Your younger soldiers―of which there are many―go free."

It's almost too easy, and at the same time, harder than anything. "That's it? No tricks?" 

"You have my word." Korev places a hand over his heart. "You and those of high rank remain here. The lower ranked soldiers are released." 

"Why would you do that?" 

Korev shrugs. "Your young soldiers are too immature to pose a threat to me or my people. It's your senior officers who have the knowledge necessary to launch an attack on me, so I'll keep them right where I can keep my eye on them.

"All you have to do is say yes." 

Erwin's heart beats loud and slow in his chest and ears and head.

A few lives lost to save many more. 

It sounds right, in his mind, but it's wrong in equal measure.

But does he have a choice?

No, not really.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i know i used to update every two or three days, but i just entered a dark age called "junior year + 4 ap classes and band" and i think it would be safe to expect updates on a weekly basis. this depressingly short chapter took way longer than it deserved but hopefully y'all can forgive that :|


	13. double-blind procedure

The sun hasn't even made an appearance when urgent whispers wake Mikasa.

She snaps upright, jerking roughly against the chains, and settles back into the sharp pain as she catches sight of Annie on the other side of her cell door. 

"Jesus, finally." 

"What the hell are you doing here?" Hoarsely, because her voice is used more often for screaming than talking now.

Annie shifts her gaze nervously to each side before replying. "You're going to be released today." 

_"What?"_

"Your general negotiated for his soldiers' lives," she explains, pale face drawn with concentration. "You and a few others are going to be let go this morning." 

Mikasa figures that she should be relieved, but it doesn't last; worry for her comrades and Annie robs her of this kindness. "Oh." 

"I know." Annie crosses her arms across her chest, a small gesture that, for her, is monumentally telling. Mikasa's rarely seen her so agitated. "I need you to do something, and not tell anyone." 

Mikasa says nothing, understanding the severity in her voice, and clenches her hands behind her back when Annie unlocks her cell and hurries inside. This time, when she kneels in front of her, there's no wild kiss; Annie instead removes a square of paper from her pocket, folds it even tighter, and slips it expertly under the bandages peeking out from under Mikasa's collar, blending perfectly. 

"Don't lose that," Annie orders. Her hand lingers for a moment longer before she shakes her head and leaves.

* * *

Annie wasn't lying: After sunrise, a Russian captain she doesn't know comes to her cell and unlocks it.

He undoes her handcuffs as well, a relief so intense that it's a new pain in and of itself. Standing up is much, much harder than it should be; a week spent chained to the floor hasn't done wonders for her legs, and she stumbles when he pulls her up by one arm and shoves her ahead of him. The muzzle of his gun pressing into her spine is enough motivation to keep moving nonetheless.

In the hallway, she sees the other prisoners receiving the same treatment, bustled out of their cells by guards. Relief crashes over her when Eren and Armin shuffle past, Eren nursing a recently bloodied nose and Armin keeping his head down. They're not in good shape, but they're _alive_ , and that's all she's ever asked for. 

Down a staircase, through a bank of holding cells, past a security checkpoint; every step confirms that they're getting closer and closer to the outside. It's too good to be true, this sudden change of scenery. _There's a catch. There has to be a catch._

The prison's main doors open before them, and weak sunlight trips inside, so inviting and sudden that she sees Connie's mouth fall slack to her left. But she refuses to believe that they're being released so easily and painlessly. She can't train herself to see the good in people when the last half of her life has been nothing but the bad. 

For obvious reasons, there are no cars in the parking lot―it's just a wide expanse of gray and cracked asphalt, separating them from the gate at the end of the property, from freedom. The guards stop.

_Here it comes._

"This is how this will work," a Russian says, releasing Christa's arm and moving to the head of the group. "Our commander has agreed to let you live, for reasons I cannot fathom and do not have the authority to fathom. However, he never said _all_ of you have to make it out alive." 

Mikasa feels her muscles tense, ready to kick and claw. A gun is still digging in between her shoulder blades, but the second it's removed she can whirl around, roundhouse, disarm, run―

Her strategic mind goes quiet when the Russian continues. "So, I thought I would make a little game of things. It's a race of sorts. I'm fair―I'll let you have a head start, even.

"You will need it: you will be racing dogs." 

Humans are predictable and weak. Mikasa can fight humans, can kill humans. Dogs are different; they're stronger and faster and more bloodthirsty, raised from birth to seek and destroy, and even the fastest humans can be felled by canines.

The gun behind her disappears, and she puts one foot back, preparing for a wild sprint across the parking lot. It's a long way to run. No obstacles, no weapons. _Think, think, think._

The Russians back away. Inside the building, she hears barking. "Our guests are here. I suggest you all start running."

So they do. 

Sprinting is just about the worst thing she can do on underused and battered legs, and the aggressive motion makes the wounds in her shoulder and neck screech with irritation, but she has no choice in the matter; she doesn't have to chance a look back to know that the dogs are coming. Every pointed strike of a paw on the ground behind her is incentive to push through. 

Not even halfway to the gate, the dogs are nearly on them. She winces when a young private's hamstring is torn out; moments later, her neck receives the same treatment. 

"Keep running!" Jean roars, sticking to the head of the pack with his long stride. 

She's three-quarters of the way there when a dog snarls from right behind her, and mortality yells in her ear. 

The dog tries to sink its teeth into her leg from behind, but she anticipates this, sidestepping expertly and watching the dog sail past her. She runs on, taking advantage of the dog's momentary loss of footing, but the Rottweiler composes itself in seconds and launches after her relentlessly. 

_Need a weapon. Something. Anything._

But it's an empty parking lot, there's nothing to use, and the dog is gaining on her. 

Muscles protesting, lungs bawling, she sees salvation in the form of a hub cap lying abandoned on the street a few yards ahead. She throws herself forward with renewed vigor, dive rolls, and catches the hub cap in her grip on the way back up. The momentum is more than enough to swing the metal plate around and slam it into the dog's nose, dazing it and allowing her to reel the cap back and strike again, right over the head.

As most things go in her life, once one problem is solved, another springs up eagerly. 

She's about to sprint for freedom, which is so close now it's overwhelming, when she sees Eren stumble and fall, immediately being set upon by a Rottweiler. He thrashes onto his back and throws his hands up, barely keeping the dog's fangs away from his neck, and she moves in that direction without thinking about it. 

The hub cap smashes down on the dog's head, once, again, and Eren finally throws the winded animal off, jumping to his feet and grabbing her hand in one of his. "Let's go!" 

Some of the others are already through the gate, and they're pushing it shut now, to keep the dogs within the property of the prison. She and Eren pick up the pace then, sliding through the gap in the gate at an unsafe speed and turning to stare as Jean and Connie get the gate closed and fumble with the rusty chain and lock.

Safe now, they back away from the gate, which the dogs are throwing themselves against with reckless abandon, futilely. 

"Casualty count?" Marco whispers, eyes wide and fixed on the parking lot behind the gate―the lot that had been empty when they arrived, and is now scattered with body parts and inked over with blood. 

"Thirteen dead," Connie grunts, eyes on the ground. 

Christa is sitting with her head in her hands, her breaths loud and rattling. "How many survivors?"

Jean answers gruffly, a deep scowl etched onto his face. "Twelve."

More than half decimated in less than ten minutes; no, they're not as ready for freedom as they've hoped. 

Armin straightens up and says in a shaking voice, "We should go. Find somewhere to hole up before the sun goes down. Or worse." 

They agree wordlessly, dusting themselves off and taking to the road on wooden legs. It's a long walk back into the city, but one they're grateful to walk.

Mikasa counts them. Nine specialists and three privates; twelve soldiers in enemy territory, devoid of resources and weapons, vulnerable as can be. 

Eren and Armin are with her the whole way. Her hand is still locked in Eren's, and Armin's finger is hooked in Eren's belt loop, completing the chain. They don't speak―none of them do―because everyone's priority is finding somewhere safe enough to speak freely. 

They make it back to the city by midday, eventually settling on a new base camp: a strip of apartment buildings built along the bank of a canal, off the main streets and secluded enough to let them breathe easy. Jean kicks the knob off the front door of one building and ushers everyone inside. 

On the second floor, they scope out the apartments lining the halls, but all of them are as empty as the rest of the city; slowly, they relax, letting their guards down just-so and reconvening near a nonfunctioning elevator. 

"Everyone here?" Eren asks, looking from one soldier to the next and nodding assuredly when the numbers add up. "Alright, let's get down to business, then." 

"What do you have in mind?" Connie asks, leaning against peeling wallpaper. His hand is bleeding still from a nearly bone-crushing bite, and Sasha keeps checking on the wound anxiously.

Armin's lips are pursed, mind running at its usual rate. "We need to communicate with HQ somehow." 

"No radios, man," Marco sighs, hand patting the spot on his waist where his radio usually sits.

"I know." Armin frowns in contemplation. "We'll just have to send someone." 

Everyone raises their eyebrows at this. Mina shifts her weight nervously. "Who would want to do that?" 

A private steps closer, her face drawn in determination. Mikasa recognizes her after a moment as one of the more skilled young soldiers in the base. The girl gestures back to the other two privates, both standing cross-armed behind her. "We will." 

Jean raises an eyebrow. "You sure about that?" 

"We are." The girl closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. "A lot of our friends just died this morning. And we have a lot of friends back home who deserve to know."

The older soldiers share considering looks, debating the pros and cons. Getting word back to base is invaluable, but sending inexperienced soldiers on an expedition without weapons or horses is incredibly irresponsible. 

"What're you thinking?" Eren asks, nudging Armin.

"I can't agree to this in good conscience," he says, crossing his arms. "But we don't really have a choice in the matter."

"One of us should go with them," Jean suggests. "Just in case." 

Mina smiles gently at the volunteers. "I'll go. Someone's gotta look out for them." 

This sets off a round of discussing their journey; Armin asserts that they should leave in the morning, to avoid traveling in the dark, and Jean immediately sets off through the apartments around the hall, digging through closets and safes in a search for weapons. He comes up with a few kitchen knives and one wizened shotgun, a gem in and of itself. 

"It's not much, but it will have to do." He gifts it to Mina with a dutiful nod.

"There's still the matter of transportation," Armin reminds them, before the group separates again. "It's not very efficient to have them _walk_ all the way there." 

"You got a better plan?" 

He smiles wryly. "There's a bike rack outside. The bikes might be a pretty rusty, but they're better than nothing." 

"We'll take what we can get," Mina says, returning the smile. "Now if you'll excuse me, I definitely need a good night's sleep." 

They disperse, uneasily. None of them want to separate, not in enemy territory, not unarmed, but the tiny apartments lining the hall only have beds for two at most, and factions are necessary. Mikasa tugs Eren and Armin into a vacant flat by their tattered sleeves, wanting nothing more than to sink into unconsciousness in synchronization with the setting sun. There's one bed, wide enough for all of them, and Eren flops down in the middle of it without even kicking off his boots. 

Armin smiles dotingly and sits on the edge of the bed to untie his laces, pausing when he sees Mikasa standing by the door still. "You alright?" 

Something has recently occurred to her. "Um, yes. Just a second." 

She shuts herself in the adjacent bathroom, pausing when her reflection in the smudged mirror catches her eye. She barely recognizes herself. Her hair has grown out past its usual short cut, now creeping past her collarbone, and when she brushes it aside, the pale pink scar of Korev's knife inches around her neck and out of sight. The amount of dried blood on her face is unnerving, so she scrubs at it with a dry towel―dry, because the sink does nothing but hiss when she turns it on. 

A sudden interest in her appearance isn't her reason for excusing herself, however, so she abandons efforts to clean up and sits on the edge of the bathtub, returning to her task. Annie's early visit flashes to the forefront of her mind, and she reaches two fingers under the bandages just visible under the neckline of her shirt, drawing them back with Annie's note crumpled in their grip. 

Mouth dry, she unfolds the scrap and reads it three times.

_Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall  
Midnight - 10-31-22_

It's just like Paley Park again. Another deadly rendezvous.

She'll be there, undoubtedly.

She joins her boys again, and they sleep soundly for the first time in a week or so; she sleeps with her back to Eren's, a defensive position they've mastered in anticipation of attack, and Armin lies on Eren's other side, held in place by the weight of one of Eren's arms across his chest.

* * *

Even pressed up against her brothers, her dreams are full of none other than Annie Leonhardt. The scene changes a hundred times―sometimes they're in the base back in New York, sometimes the cell in the Russian prison, sometimes the little rowhouse in D.C. The premise is always the same; intimate, full of wandering hands and mouths, and then the mood changes and someone ends up on the wrong end of a gun, the sharp end of a knife, and she wakes up with phantom fatalities burning on her skin.

(The fingers of one hand slip beneath Annie's waistband and curl into the virgin territory; the fingers of the other hand curl around the hilt of a blade and bring it down in a life-ending arc.)

(Annie's teeth leave prints all the way down Mikasa's stomach, but before her mouth touches down on anything obscenely lustful, the hand behind her back appears innocuously with a gun in its palm, and the shot fired is louder than anything they've ever heard before.)

They're just dreams, of course, and Mikasa attributes the cold sweat clinging to her when she wakes to pure nerves.

* * *

In the morning, the eight remaining specialists meet on the roof. 

"Everyone sleep well?" Armin asks. Once he's received scattered nods of agreement from their haphazard circle, he continues. "Good. I think we should discuss our next moves now." 

Eren, hotheaded as ever, pipes up first. "We gotta bust our commanders out." 

"Don't be stupid, Jaeger." Jean crosses his arms with a look of disdain. "We have eight people, no weapons, and no resources. How the hell do you suppose we're going to break into a prison and rescue them?"

"I didn't get that far, jackass, but maybe if you let me think―"

"Think? You've never done that before, but I'm sure now is as good a time as any to start―" 

Marco claps a hand over Jean's mouth, stopping any more insults in place, and Mikasa throws Eren a Look that he understands to mean _shut up._

"Um, good start, Eren," Armin awards. "Anyone else got any ideas?"

Christa clears her throat, one boot sliding anxiously on the roof's thin cover of gravel. "Maybe we should be looking for the President." 

"He's dead, isn't he?" Connie scratches his chin. "I mean, they took the White House, so the President probably got knocked off."

Mikasa thinks it strange how all the color drains out of Christa's face, but Armin interjects. "Even if he is alive, we have no leads or methods of finding him. The way I see it, what we really need to decide is whether we try to break our commanders out of prison, or just go home and regroup." 

Sasha frowns, brow furrowed. "I don't want to leave them here, but I don't see how we could help them without getting ourselves killed."

"And if we go home, they might be dead before we get back," Marco adds. "It's a tough one, for sure."

"It's not a hard choice. We've gotta save them." Connie fists his hands decisively. "I don't know how we'll pull it off, but I know we have to do this." 

"Eight specialists against a whole Russian militia," Eren says, a sick grin crawling over his face. "I like it."

* * *

The rest of the day is dedicated to living conditions in their new (temporary) homes. Mikasa, Jean, and Connie manage to track a herd of deer on the edge of the city and ambush a buck with rusty knives; Sasha skins and cooks it on the roof. Christa and Armin boil water from the canal for drinking and cleaning, and Eren and Marco patrol the streets surrounding the apartment building, ears peeled for approaching Russians. 

Mikasa can barely revel in how _good_ cooked food tastes, mainly because it's October 31st and in a few short hours she should be at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to meet Annie. Jitters she hasn't felt since her first link up with the Russian distract her from the group. 

"Happy Halloween, everyone," Connie jokes, lying back and flicking a piece of bone up at the night sky overhead. It skitters through the gravel on the other side of the roof. 

Jean looks at him strangely. "How the hell do you even know what day it is?" 

"Counting the days was the only way I stayed sane in my cell, brother."

"We were in there for a _week_." 

They dissolve into bickers. Mikasa checks her watch, the one that she has to hand-wind every morning, and winces when she sees the hour hand creep over the ten. Two hours to sneak off without arousing suspicion. Two hours to prepare for the worst.

"Happy Halloween," Eren parrots under his breath, rolling onto his side and shutting his eyes. The coolness of fall is erring on the side of uncomfortable, but none of them make any move to go back inside.

Armin settles down next to Eren and looks off into the distance. "What did guys do for your last Halloween?" 

They know that _last_ means before the nukes and the war and the Titans, when things were normal and they weren't soldiers. Mikasa can barely remember. All of her memories before the attack involve her parents, and they get harder to imagine every day, fading more and more at the edges until she's sure that one day they'll be gone forever. 

Eren answers without opening his eyes. "Don't you remember, Armin? I wanted to go out trick-or-treating with you, but my mom said no, because she was worried about us running off on our own." 

"And I said that we could stay home and watch TV, which pleased her, and made you rant for hours," Armin concludes, smiling wistfully. "What about you, Mikasa?" 

She shrugs. "I stayed home and helped my mother pass out candy. She asked me if I wanted to go around the neighborhood, but I preferred being there with her. Maybe if I would have known it would be our last Halloween, I would have done things differently."

Armin has a knowing look that she's always wary of, but he doesn't press the subject. His eyes float up to the wet ink sky. "You know what they say. Hindsight is 20/20."

Hindsight is 20/20. Foresight is not so gifted.

* * *

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is overwhelming. 

She infers that years ago, before the nuclear strikes and social collapse, it was a grand and sweeping testament to the lives lost in the war, a glossy black wall etched with the silver names of corpses. This is no longer the case.

Deep and ugly cracks run through its surface now, erasing many of the names permanently, and chunks of stone have fallen at intervals along its length. In the moonlight, the sight is more mournful than ever. She stops at a place where the wall is relatively intact and brushes her fingers over a legible name: _Daniel Earn._

"Sad, isn't it?" 

She knows it's Annie, but Mikasa still looks over her shoulder, heart jumping into her throat because they're together and there are no guards or bars or handcuffs between them. 

"It was built to commemorate the victims of one war, and then became a victim to another war," Annie notes, standing beside her. Her eyes rove over the stone. "How ironic."

Mikasa agrees wordlessly, thinking about the knife tucked into her waistband, the one that she knows she won't need here.

"I have a question." Mikasa's throat constricts around the words, terrified of letting them free, knowing they won't ever come back. 

"Ask away." 

"Levi. Smith. All of them―are they alive?" 

Annie is quiet long enough for her to imagine the worst situations, but the answer does come, and it lets her breathe. "They're alive." 

"Jesus," Mikasa says to the stone. 

"I have a question, too." 

She looks at Annie sideways, but doesn't find her eyes. "Oh?" 

"Where do we go from here?" 

It's a good question, yes, but one Mikasa has no reply to.

She turns around and puts the wall behind her, pretending she can't see it stretching away to both sides in her peripherals, and watches a statue rust and rumble in the sharp wind, tiny metallic pieces suicide diving to the pavement at random intervals. 

Annie mirrors her movement, but can only endure the silence for a few seconds; when she speaks, it's harsh, forcing the quiet to bend to her. "Fucking _answer me_."

But there's no answer to give, and Annie shoves her with a growl of frustration, hands balling in Mikasa's shirt. She seems to wrestle with an urge to strike her, and resolves this struggle by pushing until Mikasa's back hits the black stone and tugging down until their lips meet.

Mikasa stiffens, and thinks that she shouldn't be doing _this_ with her spine pressing into a hundred thousand ghosts, something that was erected to honor dead soldiers; but the more she considers it, as Annie's hands rake her skin and open up old wounds and new, the more she realizes that she is no different from this wall―something strong and unyielding, something that carries the memories of countless dead but ultimately, tragically, does nothing for them.

* * *

Annie tires herself out, eventually, and they sink to the ground, Annie curled in Mikasa's lap. It's a more vulnerable position than Mikasa's used to from the Russian, but she doesn't comment, her arms immediately going around her.

"We can't keep doing this," is what Annie says, but her fingers, which are digging into Mikasa's forearm like ten vises, say something else. 

"You're probably right."

"We should forget about each other." 

"Also true." 

"I should kill you." 

"I wouldn't blame you." 

Annie lets go of her arm and gets to her feet, agitated, more visibly than usual. "I've had so many chances. I could have killed you any time I wanted." 

"But you didn't." Mikasa draws her knees up to fill the void left in Annie's wake, watching her pace with some disinterest. 

"I didn't, and that's what's so fucked up." She stills, and for a brief, clarifying moment, her fingers dance over the handgun holstered on her upper thigh. They flinch away almost instantaneously.

"Why can't I do it?" 

Mikasa looks in the other direction, not wanting to see Annie's face when everything clicks for her. "I think you know why." 

They both do. One word, one syllable, four letters. Synonym: a crock of shit. 

"No," Annie mutters. But her hands curl in and out of fists, and one of them goes to her chest, as if she can physically feel the revelation her heart's experiencing. "No, no." 

Mikasa stands as well and takes the hand that trembles over Annie's chest, mercifully. "Stop." 

"Fuck off." 

"You need to relax." She pauses. "Let's go somewhere."

"Where?"

"We'll figure it out on the way."

* * *

It's a bit of a walk, but they soon pass the Washington Monument, rising up through the cool night as a white pillar, and make it to the other side.

"What is this?" Annie asks, eyes sweeping across the water.

"This is the reflecting pool," Mikasa says. At the other end of the water, two-thousand feet away, the Lincoln Memorial stands chipped and dirty in the moonlight. 

Annie says nothing, stepping down the last stretch of grass separating the Washington Monument from the pavement surrounding the reflecting pool. She stops right at the pool's edge. 

"It's clean," she marvels. 

Mikasa joins her. The water is no more than three feet deep, and much of it is rain water, so the reflecting aspect of the reflecting pool is somewhat diminished; but it's still far cleaner than it has any right to be, and she crouches down to run her fingers through the water. It's cool, almost uncomfortably so, but it's doable.

"Why are we here?" Annie wants to know, watching Mikasa test the water.

"We're relaxing," she replies. 

Everything is still around them. The night is impenetrably dark, almost silken, and the only eyes Mikasa feels on her are Annie's. Her fingers reach to tug off her vest, only to remember that it was lost sometime during her imprisonment; they reroute to the hem of her shirt and pull it over her head gingerly, avoiding the cuts and bruises she can't shake off. 

Annie understands, but doesn't mimic her. The Russian observes silently as Mikasa strips down to her underwear. It's not a sexual thing, really, but a mechanical one, and the bandages that cling to her skin in various places rob her of any measure of seduction. 

She steps into the water up to her ankle, not flinching when it's predictably cold. The bottom of the pool slopes down to its greatest depth―probably the halfway point between her knee and hip, she guesses―but she goes no further, looking at Annie with a dare peeking out from under her eyes. 

It's enough to spur Annie into movement. Her vest hits the pavement with a thud and she undoes the buttons of her uniform shirt impatiently, shucking it off before the last button is even severed. She wears a white t-shirt underneath that comes off with far less ruckus; everything after that is easy.

Mikasa looks back when she's ventured deep enough for the water to kiss her knees. Annie pauses at ankle-depth, her body more petite than ever in the absence of clothing, and meets her eyes. 

"Now what?" she says.

"What do you want?"

It's a valid question, but one they're terrified of answering―because they can't say _I want you._ They can't voice it, because treason out loud is more deplorable than the treason of their lips meeting; because you can deny the thoughts in your head all your life, but you can never take back the words you say.

_That's what I thought._ The silence persists, and Mikasa sits down, the water lapping at her stomach.

There's one obvious solution to all of their problems, and that's forgetting about each other entirely; but the thought is foreign and confusing to Mikasa. Trying to imagine her life without the question mark that is Annie Leonhardt, to go back to how things used to be, feels nonsensical and wrong, even though she acknowledges that it is, in all honesty, the most sound option spread before her.

She could do it―could get up and walk away, no explanation, and maybe never see Annie again; perhaps on the battlefield, for brief moments, but avoiding someone in the middle of war is easier than one might think. She doesn't entertain the thought of killing her.

Annie gets down on her knees next to her, and she's small enough that the water settles around her hips. "This isn't relaxing." 

"No?"

"No." She lays her hands flat over the water. "This is a baptism." 

"I'm not religious." 

Annie brings her hands up to her neck, and when she takes them away again, her skin glitters. "Neither am I."

Something primal stirs in the pit of Mikasa's stomach at the sight, but she stays still, her fingers splaying on the smooth concrete on the bottom of the pool. Annie is slightly behind her, so if she keeps her eyes forward, on the grand and crumbling Lincoln Memorial across the water, she can almost pretend she's alone. 

But Annie Leonhardt isn't one to be ignored, and all of the muscles and ligaments in Mikasa's body tighten to flashpoint when Annie's cold, thin hands reach around from behind and drag over her skin.

Water is the universal solvent―most things dissolve in it, and they are no exceptions to this rule.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm a girl


	14. phantom limbs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my school was evacuated/cancelled because of a bomb threat the other morning, so you can thank that incident for the bulk of this chapter :) enjoy your fresh anguish

November deepens, Mina and the others are yet to return, and Armin's thoughts suffocate him.

"Nothing adds up," he murmurs, more to himself than the others. It's nearly dark, so the specialists are gathered on the roof of their building for dinner, sitting around a nearly-doused fire. 

"What're you going on about, Armin?" Connie inquires, tossing aside a gutted can of spaghetti. 

Armin barely hears him. "This. All of this. I'm trying to make sense of it, but I must be missing a piece somewhere." 

"How's that?"

"I want to form a vague timeline of events, but it's not forming." Armin takes a fork and draws a line in the thin gravel. "It starts when Russia sends a nuclear missile our way. Two years pass, then Titans come along. Nearly five years go by and Russians come to America, disband our government, and claim the capital." 

"So?" Marco prods, his head in Jean's lap. 

"There's no motive," he sighs, rubbing his eyebrow. "Our country was nearly destroyed by the nuclear strikes. Titans are picking off our population day by day and we lack more than the most basic of resources. So, why did the Russians come all this way? What do they have to gain by finishing us off like this?" 

His questions coat the roof in silence. Mikasa glances around and notices the concentrated expressions of her comrades, futile as they are. None of them can come up with an explanation.

"I think something happened along the way that our government kept quiet, and that's what I need to figure this all out," Armin theorizes. "It must have been something ugly to bring this upon us." 

Jean yawns into his hand. "What does it even matter, man? There's no stopping them at this point. Our best option is to bust Smith and the others out, _if_ that's even possible, grab as many supplies as we can, and then find somewhere to live where the Russians won't find us." 

"Jeez, ain't you a ray of sunshine," Sasha mutters under her breath. 

"Just being realistic." 

Armin stands and brushes dirt from his knees, smiling gently. "Let's just keep our heads. We'll figure everything out, sooner or later." 

They start to get up as well, but Mikasa stays seated, mulling Armin's problem over in her head. She really _doesn't_ know why the Russians are here. Even after all the time she's spent with Annie, the answer evades her. But it makes sense. Mikasa never reveals her country's secrets, and Annie does the same.

"What are you really thinking, Armin?" Eren asks, when the three are alone in the stairwell. 

Armin frowns. "I didn't want to say it in front of the others, but I have the feeling the U.S. initiated a counter-strike at some point, something big enough to make the Russians angry but small enough to keep quiet." 

"What, like a nuke?"

"Maybe. Maybe something smaller." Armin hops off the last step and shoulders the door open. "In any case, something happened, and we need to figure out what."

* * *

They take turns patrolling, breaking into pairs and surveying the area for a few hours before handing the responsibility to another pair. Without firearms, the best they can bring on these expeditions are kitchen knives, but they make the most of it, sticking close to the shadows of the abandoned city and keeping their senses pricked for signs of discovery. 

A week passes before they catch sight of the enemy. 

Mikasa and Jean are picking their way through a shadow-littered side street when the noise reaches them, the rhythmic pattern of boots on asphalt and the subtle clicks of rifles shifting. The Americans share a dutiful look before dropping into crouches and creeping to the end of the narrow strip of road, Jean peering out around the corner before motioning for Mikasa to look, too.

It's not the most uplifting scene. A handful of Russians who they recognize from the prison walk in loose formation, armed and dangerous, lazily strolling along the road. They don't seem to be taking their job seriously; most of them are broken into separate conversations, most likely assuming that the Americans weren't stupid enough to hang around in dangerous territory. 

"Son of a bitch." Jean backs up and drops into a crouch behind a metal garbage can. Mikasa takes one last look―Reiner Braun and Bertholdt Fubar are among the squad, but Annie is not―and then falls back as well, taking up position behind a garbage can a few feet away from Jean's. 

Snippets of the Russians' conversations reach towards them, some in Russian, some in English. They gravitate desperately to the English remarks, praying for something that might prove useful to them. 

"What a silly mission," a female says from out of sight. "As if anyone would want to stay under their enemy's nose without food or weapons." 

"We don't question orders, we complete them." This voice she recognizes as Reiner's. "Everyone keep your eyes moving. We'll be home in no time." 

"That prison is no home," one of them spits. "We have no home."

Someone laughs humorlessly. "Play our cards right and this whole country will be our home, my friend."

They pass by Jean and Mikasa's hiding space then, just feet away, but their disinterest in their task is enough to shield the Americans from them. When voices and footsteps fade to nothing, Jean and Mikasa straighten up and agree silently that it's time to head back home. 

The others are milling around the second floor when they arrive, interested by the prospect of news. "What happened out there, you two?" 

"Russians," is all Jean has to say, and silence falls like heavy snow. 

"They were patrolling," Mikasa elaborates, crossing her arms and leaning against a chipped wall. "We hid, waited for them to leave, and then came back." 

Armin swallows his fear, dissecting the implications of this. "How far from here?" 

"Good half a mile, maybe more," Jean theorizes. "Not too close, but not far enough, either." 

"Shit," Connie mutters. He's sharpening his knife on a chunk of rock, and the downward stroke of the blade is particularly aggressive on the expletive. 

"Let's stay calm." Christa's expression doesn't match her words. "They might not come this way." 

"But what if they do?" Eren pushes, fingers drumming on his upper arms. "We've gotta be ready to defend this dump." 

Sasha holds up her masterpiece―a bow constructed from materials scattered throughout the building, followed by a handful of carefully-carved arrows. "We'll be ready for 'em." 

"There's eight of us, Sasha, we have to be realistic." Armin sighs and sinks to the floor, back against the wall. "We need to gather anything of use and pack it up. If they come this way, we have to run. There's no other option." 

Marco shifts his weight from foot to foot. "What about Mina? If we leave without her, she'll walk right into an ambush." 

"Damn it," Armin says. He shuts his eyes, mouth moving over words he doesn't voice. "Okay, we wait for Mina. As soon as she gets back, we have to consider whether or not we can afford to stay. Sound fair?" 

They agree halfheartedly. Everyone wants different things; some of the group hotheadedly wants to rescue their commanders, another portion wants to hideout, and a final few want to go home immediately. Staying put is the middle ground, so they'll have to endure their stay for a while longer, if only to protect themselves.

The rest of the day is spent close to home. Eren and Connie stand watch on the roof, ready to tear down the stairs and raise the alarm in the case that Russians approach, but night falls with no cause for concern. Jean and Marco take the night watch (Eren whistles suggestively as the two young men begin to ascend the roof-access stairs, and Jean wastes no time in punching his shoulder) and the others attempt to get a good night's sleep.

It doesn't take long for Mikasa to break the trio's habit of sleeping all in one apartment. The first night they share the one bed, the necessity for human contact is great; the second night, this urgency fades. When Mikasa wakes on the second morning and sees Armin tucked into Eren's arms, it occurs to her that perhaps the bonds between the three are stronger in some spots than others. 

So she moves two doors down, to a vacant apartment with a bed to herself. She sleeps better alone, anyway, and it's better if her teammates don't see how strangely she finds herself acting―waking in the night with cold sweat beading between her breasts, drawn by a nightmare she can't remember, or losing focus entirely for uncomfortably long periods of time. 

She keeps these off-canter moments to herself, remaining collected when around the others. They don't look to her as a leader, exactly, although she technically outranks all of them; she's more like a weapon, someone strong and valuable in a fight, someone they don't want to lose if the Russians come knocking. The last thing they need is to see her crumble around the edges.

* * *

Christa knows she shouldn't, but in the dark of night, when sleep dances just out of reach, she sometimes creeps out of her borrowed bed and through the ransacked apartment, into the hallway, past the doors of sleeping friends, and down into the building's battered lobby. 

Nighttime calls to her more than ever. She needs to feel moonlight on her face and to breathe in the scent of clean air to keep her head on her shoulders, so she merges with the darkness just outside the apartment building's front door and sucks in the late-night scents greedily. 

Plastering herself to the building only makes her more restless. She pats her hip to make sure her kitchen knife is skewered through her belt loop, then dashes across the road and looks back when she's in the shadows of a building on the opposite corner. Up on the roof, she can make out Jean and Marco, sitting with their legs over the edge. They're facing the opposite direction, so she takes the opportunity to slip away for a short walk.

It turns out to be exactly what she needs. Stretching her legs, getting away from the painful memories imbued in their stolen home, is therapeutic. The rhythm of her boots on the asphalt is solid and real. She can hang onto something that exists, like footfalls or the rush of her breath; she can't rely on the more abstract facets of her life, like the mysteries of the Russians and the whereabouts of the President. And her secrets.

She stops abruptly. Footsteps reach her ears, and they're definitely not hers. 

Something colder than fear pools in her joints and muscles, rooting her in place as the footsteps grow closer. She's such an idiot. She never should have left on her own, not at night, not with just a small cleaver on her waist. Just as the approaching person begins to round the corner, she ducks into the narrow space between two buildings, flattening herself against the wall. 

"Hello?" 

Christa's hands tremble where they clutch the brick behind her because that voice is oh, oh so familiar. 

"Hey, who's there?" That voice is getting closer now, and Christa sees no other option. She steps into view and raises both hands. The barrel of Ymir's rifle immediately trains on her. 

It falters almost in the same instant. "What the fuck?" 

"Keep your voice down," Christa pleads, wondering if the boys on the roof a few streets over can hear their exchange.

Ymir throws a wild look over her shoulder and then sidles into the narrow space Christa's just vacated, beckoning the girl with her. She stops a good distance into the passageway. "What the _hell_ are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Christa replies weakly. 

"I'm doing my job," the Russian girl asserts. "You should have gotten out of here when you had the chance. What the hell are you people thinking?" 

"We're―"

"Idiots," Ymir finishes for her, rubbing her forehead. "Fucking idiots. You're ants compared to us. You get that, right? We can crush you if you're not careful." 

Christa opens her mouth, failing to get much further. Her head reels from hurt, followed by a mental kick―why should she care what this _enemy_ says? Why is she even speaking to her so casually? 

_You should kill her,_ a dutiful voice in her head suggests. _It's your job._

Ymir's rifle is down at her side; the knife is out of sight but well within Christa's reach. One swipe and she could end this. The supplies Ymir carries are invaluable to the stranded Americans―this one murder could mean great things for her friends. But she remains stock-still, wide-eyed and speechless before the whirlwind in front of her. 

"I mean, Jesus, we let you _go_ ," Ymir goes on, resting her weight on the wall and turning her incredulous stare to the strip of sky above them. "How careless could you be to stay here, right under our noses? Jesus―"

Christa cuts her off with a knife to her throat.

"Listen." She tries to make her voice hard and scary, the way Eren and Jean and Mikasa can, but it's not her. "We have motives beyond your understanding, and no intention to explain them to you. You call me an idiot, but you left yourself wide open to a fatal strike. So who's really got a death wish here?"

Ymir's face is slack with surprise. Slowly, it comes back to life, and she startles them both when she laughs out loud. 

"You've got some spark in you, Renz," she says, her chuckles pushing the knife further against her skin. "But I ain't worried about you." 

"Why? You don't think I could kill someone?"

"'Course you can." Ymir wraps her fingers around Christa's wrist and guides the knife away, still grinning. "Just not me." 

Christa wants to argue, but the counterargument is already written in the way that the knife falls to her side and doesn't rear up again. 

"Yeah, thought so." Ymir sweeps her eyes left and right. "You'd better be careful out here, kid. Not all of the monsters are as nice as me in this town." 

The American sheathes the knife with a scowl. "I can take care of myself." 

"I don't doubt it." 

"So don't tell me what to do." Antsy, Christa checks her watch. She's been out for a while; if anyone's discovered her bed empty, the panic brewing back at their base must be uncontrollable. This is far too risky. "I need to go." 

Ymir's grin flashes towards her. "Ah, don't be such a killjoy." 

"Get out of here," Christa orders, listening for the sound of approaching footsteps and hearing none. She sidles backwards, running a hand along the wall for guidance, never removing her eyes from Ymir's. "Pretend this never happened." 

"No fun in that." Ymir follows, face playful. "Come on, Renz, live a little. You've clearly got no sense of urgency if you're hanging around occupied D.C." 

She has a point. 

Christa stops and holds a hand up. "I'm going, and you're going in the opposite direction. Got that?" 

"That's like telling metal to stay away from a magnet, honey," Ymir says, and she blows a kiss before she goes.

* * *

Mina returns, alone, on the crest of November's third week.

Connie and Sasha, the two on guard duty, come tearing down the stairs from the roof with the excitement clawing out of their wide grins. "She's back!" 

Everyone gathers downstairs and pokes out onto the street cautiously, wary of a trap. But the foretelling is genuine―Mina waves cheerfully from a horse-drawn wagon, the rear end of the wagon piled with provisions.

They work quickly and efficiently then, unloading Mina's spoils and delivering them inside with great efficiency. The horses and wagon are brought around the backside of the building, where the horses can nibble on overgrown grass and canal water, and where the animals won't be too obviously flaunted. 

These things taken care of, they crowd Mina on the second floor, demanding details. 

"Calm down, calm down," Mina insists, a persistent smile on her face. She's rarely seen without one. "I'll tell you everything, okay?"

"Where are the others?" Marco interrupts. "Those privates who went with you." 

Miraculously, Mina's smile falters, and they begin to anticipate bad news. 

"We made it home okay," Mina says, over the sudden hush. "It wasn't easy, but we did. I think that made us really―complacent, or hopeful, maybe, because when we got back to the base, we didn't even think it was strange that the front gates were unlocked and unattended. We were just so excited to be home, probably."

"What happened?" 

She shuts her eyes. "The front doors of the school were blasted off their hinges. We knew then that something really, really bad had happened, but we wanted to believe nothing was wrong. We couldn't pretend, though. A few steps into the building, we saw dead soldiers scattered around the floor and blood all over. 

"One of the privates started freaking out, like, hyperventilating and stuff. I tried to calm him down, but he was inconsolable. Next thing I know, a bunch of civilians with assault rifles were charging down the hallway." 

"They took over?" Armin whispers, his eyes wide and glassy. 

"They took over." Mina winces, the memory stronger in her mind than she'd like. "They shot the kid. I shouted at the other two―they were so scared, they just stood there―and we bolted out of the front door. It was dark by then, so we were able to lose them on the lawns. We waited in the bushes for hours before they finally gave up looking for us." 

Jean, grave-faced, sits down on the scarred floor. "How'd you get those horses?" 

"When we were sure they'd gone back inside, we sneaked around to the back lawns and stole the horses. There was no chance we were getting to the armory inside, so that was the best we could do." 

"So where are they now?" Christa asks. 

Mina frowns. "Titans." 

The one word that hasn't been on their mind much.

"How?" 

She rubs her eyebrow, searching for the words. "We were going to come back here. Everything was looking good―we had a cart and horses. No weapons, but the means to run from danger. But they just came out of nowhere―ran around a corner and came at us full-speed. I couldn't turn the horses around fast enough, and right when I was rerouting, a Titan came and just―just _plucked_ one of the privates out of the cart." 

"Bastards," is Jean's contribution.

"Yeah," Mina agrees, eyes faraway. "The last private told me to get home no matter what. She had this really crazy look in her eyes, so I was expecting it when she started climbing onto the edge of the wagon. I reached out to grab her arm, but she jumped before I could, and she ran in the opposite direction."

"And the Titans went after her," Mikasa finishes, already knowing where this story ends. 

"They went after her," Mina says. Her eyes shut again. "She sacrificed herself so I could come back here." 

Mikasa isn't surprised. Heroes don't get far in this world.

The moment passes, and Connie tries to jump back into business. "Well, we've got horses now. We can leave if we want to. So I think it's time to decide. Are we going back for the general and the others, or are we leaving?"

"We've got nothing to go back to, man," Jean mutters. "Might as well bust them out." 

"But how?" Sasha wants to know.

No one but Armin can reply. "We don't have the muscle, obviously, but we have the brains. If we put our minds to it, we can do this." 

"You got a plan?" 

"I have details," Armin corrects. "We put them together the right way, we might have a plan. So, what do we know about the prison?" 

"Guard shifts are round-the-clock," Sasha recites, thinking back. "But the most guards were on duty in the afternoon and evening, while the least guards were on duty in the very early morning."

"That's a start," Armin praises. "What else?"

Marco pipes up with a look of intense concentration. "They have an armory. I passed by it on my way to my cell―it's an office that they filled with guns and their version of 3DMG. We get in there, we're in business." 

"Where's the armory?"

"It was pretty deep in the building," Marco replies, shrugging. "Getting there won't be easy." 

"It's a good lead, though." Armin shifts his eyes to the rest of the group. "Anyone else got anything?"

Eren's head snaps up. "They're patrolling the area, right? Next time we see one of their squads, we should follow them. See if we can learn anything that way." 

"Risky, but worth it." Armin waits for any final words, then continues. "Okay. A couple more days to get things ready and tail Russian patrols, then we need to really get this plan in gear."

* * *

Erwin begins to lose sight of his beliefs. 

Sometimes, briefly, in the throes of agony and mental strain, he forgets why he agreed to this torment―he forgets the young, bright faces of the soldiers he saved, the ones who have a chance out there for his sacrifice. 

In these moments of weakness, he thinks less of those young ones and thinks of the older officers he bargained with―Hanji, Mike, Nile, Levi's squad, and, God, Levi. He can hear their screams from his cell, when he's lying face down on the floor and begging for the stone to split open and swallow him. And he can hear the peak of their cries and then the sudden and crushing silence when their injuries become too much to endure and unconsciousness rescues them. 

It is, truly, his idea of Hell on Earth.

His own pain is nothing compared to theirs. He would give his life a thousand times in a thousand ways to spare them, but it doesn't work that way, much as he wishes it did. So, his only reprieve is that strange gray area between consciousness and unconsciousness, where he can forget everything and remember the times when his worst problems were insurgents in Afghanistan.

His cheek is flattened against the cool concrete of the cell's floor when boots approach from the hallway. The cell door clangs open and he opens his eyes, glaring with the little fight left in him. The commander named Korev stands in the doorway, alone, a pleasant air about him and a shiny machete sheathed in his belt. 

"General Smith. How fortunate it is for me to find you awake this fine morning." Korev moves farther into the cell and stops inches from the American. "Tell me, how are you?"

Erwin says nothing; he's learned that his words have lost any value by now, and he might as well save his breath. 

"Ah, always the quiet one." The commander crouches down and smiles easily. "So admirable, General. I so appreciate a polite guest." 

"What the fuck do you want?" Erwin snarls against the floor, the taste of concrete already burned into his tongue from days spent on it. 

"Touchy. Just one little question―when was the last time you were in contact with the President of the United States?" 

Erwin freezes.

Korev twists his hand in Erwin's hair and jerks his head up, locking eyes with him. "Care to share?"

"I have nothing to say," Erwin coughs back.

"Mm, unlikely. Don't play games, General, we intercepted transmission between your base and the White House a month and a half ago. Now tell me what those messages contained, and I'll leave you to your own devices."

"Not happening." And Erwin shuts his eyes, because he knows he won't talk, and he knows that won't end well for him.

The whisper of metal as Korev unsheathes the machete settles in Erwin's bones, so he keeps his eyes shut tight, willing the commander to find even a sliver of mercy. He doesn't. 

The blade is cool against the base of his neck. "It does not have to be this way, Smith." 

"It does," Erwin mouths. The machete moves. 

And he tries, God _damn_ does he try, but the screams still rip out of him like birds taking flight, wild and sudden and attention-grabbing, and he prays that his soldiers are unconscious or far away or both, prays that they don't hear him abandoning his pledge to be strong enough for all of them.

His blood seems to be everywhere _but_ inside of him, warm and wet against his cheek, pooling on the ground, splattered against the wall. And he thrashes. He struggles and flails, but a foot on his back keeps him down, and the weight of his pain is like gravity, pinning him to the floor. 

Slowly, he gives up. 

The anguish is enough that he ultimately feels nothing. He feels like he's existing outside of himself, like his mind abandoned ship when it realized the ship was gone beyond repair. 

Korev steps back into his vision, face unchanged, unaffected by the red stains on his clothes. And he holds his arm up. Erwin looks because he can do nothing else, and he stares, because he's never seen his right arm anywhere but on his shoulder, and now it's hanging limply in the grip of a Russian commander. He blacks out.

* * *

Snow falls early that year, coming down in mid-November and sticking to everything _but_ the ground, and Mikasa and Eren are brushing the downpour from their clothes as they walk the streets, ignoring the chill by sheer force of will.

Eren's breath puffs out in front of him when he speaks. "Where do you think we'll find the Russians?" 

"A bit farther," she says, though she has no way of knowing. Her certainty is always enough to soothe him.

Eren walks with his knife unsheathed and in his fist, ready to hack at anything, but she lets her knife hang dormant on her belt, knowing that in a conflict with the Russians, their knives will have no bearing against assault rifles. She doesn't voice this, of course. Pretending to be positive is more effective than expressing negativity. 

Noise reaches her before it reaches him, and she shoots her hand out and catches him by the upper arm. "Listen." 

He does, and the distinct murmur of footsteps and voices graces him as well. "Russians?" 

"Most likely." They're standing in the middle of the road―vulnerable―and she jerks Eren's arm for him to follow when she turns and darts to the side, jumping to get her hands around the bottom rung of an iron ladder and then heaving herself up. It leads up to a fire escape that chokes up the side of the building, and she takes its winding stairs two at a time, only stopping when she's climbed onto the roof. 

Eren is right behind her, hauling himself onto the building with one arm. Mikasa tugs him down onto his stomach when the soldiers come into view, moving comfortably down the road. Only six. Eren tenses as if he wants to leap onto the street and take them all at once, but Mikasa increases the pressure on his shoulder blade, warning. 

She searches their faces. Four boys, all brawny and wide-shouldered. Two girls―one tall and thin, the other short and blonde. Annie walks just to the side of the patrol, bored as ever.

Eren doesn't seem to notice her, so Mikasa keeps her poker face firmly in place, removing her hand slowly. 

The soldiers pass them, completely unaware, and they nod to each other and follow via the rooftops, staying a few yards behind the patrol and applying every ounce of stealth they have. As they dive onto the roof of the adjacent building, they begin to pick up on what the Russians are saying. 

"Do you know what the commander did to the American general?" one soldier asks, rifle up against his shoulder. "I heard him screaming from all the way outside." 

Her heart sinks. 

Another answers. "I heard that he killed him, but Ivan went by afterwards and took a look."

"What happened?" 

"Korev cut the man's _arm_ ," the soldier chuckles. "The whole limb, right at the shoulder."

"Surely he died of blood loss."

"You would think so, right?" The man laughs again. "No. Korev ordered a medic to staunch the blood and save his life. He's not done playing with him just yet." 

The female soldier laughs as well. "His frugality is so refreshing." 

"Prisoners are very valuable. Can't just toss them out for no reason―"

They all stop. Mikasa freezes, too, and looks over her shoulder at Eren, whose spring green eyes are wide and horrified. She pans her gaze down at his foot, which had displaced a crumbling edge of the roof and sent the broken concrete tumbling noisily down the side of the building. 

"Someone's up there," a Russian growls from below. 

"Go after them!" another orders. 

Eren is frozen, but Mikasa snaps him out of it with a hand around his wrist, yanking him back the way they came. They have a slight advantage on the rooftops―it'll take their pursuers some time to get to their elevation―and she intends to exploit it. Move fast enough overhead and they'll be able to lose the Russians without a problem, as long as nothing else goes wrong.

Something else goes wrong. 

Eren and Mikasa hit the edge of a roof at the same time, aiming to vault onto the next building, when the concrete gives away and they both flail, void of any measure of velocity. She shoots her hand out on instinct, her fingers catching painfully on a window ledge, but Eren isn't as quick―he grazes the side of the building uselessly and lands hard on his feet, two stories below. 

"Mother _fucker_ ," he grunts, trying to stand and immediately falling to one knee. 

"What's wrong?" Mikasa scales down to him at record pace, mentally scrambling because they simply don't have time to stop like this.

He swears again. "Fell on my ankle wrong. It hurts like a bitch." 

"We've got to keep moving―" 

She catches motion at the end of the alley behind him, and, predictably, a bad situation gets worse. 

Annie stares at her from behind the barrel of a rifle, and she looks right at home in the winter snow. 

"Don't move," she says. Her voice fits, too. Cold and weightless.

Eren, ignoring his injury, gets up with a steadying hand against the building, putting all of his weight on his good ankle. He stands protectively in front of her. Role reversal. "Back off, you European scum." 

To her credit, Annie doesn't seem particularly offended by this. "I'd be a little nicer to the girl pointing a gun at you." 

"Fuck you," Eren snarls. 

"Eren." Mikasa hooks her fingers in his collar and tugs him behind her, none-too-gently. "Shut up." He opens his mouth to protest, so she shoves just-so. Her brother loses his already-weak footing and hits the ground on his side, rolling over to glare at her but, thankfully, staying down.

Annie watches patiently and then stalks a bit closer, never lowering the gun. "You really should keep your mouth shut. I doubt you want to draw more of my comrades here."

"Cut the crap," Eren says, albeit quieter. "Shoot us if you want. I don't have to listen to this bullshit." 

"You're in no position to give orders," Annie reminds him. Her eyes shift to his sister, and Annie makes a grave, careless mistake: 

"Mikasa, tell him to have some manners."

She realizes her error after it's too late to fix it, and the three fall silent. Nothing moves but the snow that starts to fall gently overhead. Mikasa's heart picks up like a sudden tempo change, and she looks back at Eren, whose face is mixed between concentration and shock. 

"How the hell do you know her name?" he asks, softly at first. He gains some vigor. _"How the hell do you know that?!"_

Annie's eyes are wider than Mikasa's ever seen them, the little details in her face starting to lose their usual cool, and the rifle shifts from Mikasa to Eren. 

Because it can't get any worse, Mikasa throws her hands up. "Annie, don't do this―"

"What did you just call her?" Eren demands, now trying to get up. "What the _fuck_ is going on here?"

He never makes it to feet. Mikasa realizes that the situation _can_ , in fact, get worse when Annie's finger jerks on the trigger. 

The blood blooms on Eren's shirt and erupts from the back simultaneously; he looks down dumbly and puts one hand to his chest, before the arm that was holding him up gives out and he collapses in the snow, once pristine white and now colored a watery pink. His mouth opens and closes, a dribble of blood already collecting in the corner of his lip, but he does not speak.


	15. 180°

She allows herself a moment, briefly, to process. 

Eren's blood is creeping out from under him and his eyes are closed, his chest still moving but his breaths coming out harsh and labored. 

Annie is frozen with regret; the panic is gone now, and she looks down at the rifle hanging limply in her right hand, at the smoking gun. 

Her next mistake is to try to rectify the situation: "Mikasa, I didn't—" 

"Stop talking." 

Annie stops.

Mikasa's hands shake where they hang at her sides, and she doesn't try to hide it. She turns. The time to process is over, and all that's left now is to act. Her head is full of nonsense— _fucking kill her, rip her throat out_ —but she can't do that, not yet. As much as she wants to, as much as her hands itch to tear skin from bone, she has to keep calm for just a little while longer.

"Don't say another word," she goes on. Talking is therapeutic, even if her voice shakes on its exit. 

She almost stays calm for a bit longer, but Eren's leg stops twitching in the corner of her vision, and she loses it. 

The rifle falls useless in the snow when she grabs Annie by her collar and forces her up against the building. All of her fear for her brother channels into the rage that's igniting in the pit of her chest, red hot, pushing against her ribs and licking at her heart, and some of it creeps into her head, demanding blood for blood. 

Annie does a good job of not looking completely terrified, but even her usual blank expression has an undertone of wariness. "Look, I didn't mean to shoot—" 

"But you did." Her hands tremble even when balled in the fabric of Annie's shirt. "Why." 

Not a question, but a statement, leaving room for nothing but the truth. Annie's hands curl around Mikasa's wrists when she replies. "He was going to figure it out. Figure _us_ out." 

The validity of her reasoning is striking, but Mikasa's behind seeing sense. Her eyes burn with what she thinks are tears, but it's not time for that yet.

"If what we have is so shameful to you that you would shoot my own _brother_ "—her voice is so deceptively calm—"then what the hell are we even doing here?"

Finally, a question that Annie has no answer for. 

"I thought so." Her fist reels back, reflexively, as natural as breathing, and smashes into Annie's face. Her nose snaps. The blood distributes itself between Mikasa's knuckles and Annie's lips, indecisive. 

"Don't do this," Annie says thickly, teeth already stained red. 

"Save your breath." It's so easy to throw Annie down, petite as she is, and even easier to drive her heel into Annie's stomach. The thud reminds Mikasa of a lifeless thug sliding off the end of her knife, of a nine-year-old Eren's eyes boring into hers, encouraging, and she can't even begin to imagine a world where those eyes are closed, forever.

"You're a monster." She says this, but the sound barely reaches her ears. "You and all of your kind are sick _animals_." 

Accent every word with a blow. It's good to retaliate, calming. She can't beat a bullet out of Eren's chest or bully the blood back into his veins, but she can batter something solid—Annie. She can break bones and bore down on flesh; she can hurt. That's all she's ever excelled at: inflicting pain. 

But she stops, suddenly, with her knees on either side of Annie's hips and her fist drawn back for another strike, because something nags at her. 

She's not fighting back. 

"Why aren't you trying to hit me?" she asks, letting her hand fall limply to her side. 

Annie turns her head and spits blood in the snow, her eyes more heavy-lidded than usual with rapid bruising. "I probably deserve this." 

Four words and the fight goes out of Mikasa like air from a balloon. Those _stupid_ tears are threatening to return, persistent little shits, and in the absence of a punching bag, they're close to falling. She has to stop now. If Eren can be saved, the opportunity is getting narrower by the minute. 

She gets to her feet. Everything feels wrong, off-canter, like her legs are just a few inches off of where they should be and her arms are on the wrong sides of her. She kneels and picks up Annie's discarded rifle, turning to see the Russian get up with an expression twisted in pain. 

The rifle is icy in Mikasa's hand. "Get out of here." 

"What?" 

"Go, and don't come back." She doesn't point the weapon; she doesn't have to. "If I see you again, I'll end you. And I promise you, it's not an empty threat this time." 

Annie doesn't move, not her legs, anyway. Her hand goes into the pocket of her pants and comes back out with a roll of bandages. She tosses them. They land in the snow next to Eren's hand, a gesture of good will. Then she wipes the blood from her face and levels her gaze. 

"Sorry." 

And it's about as sincere as Annie Leonhardt knows how to be; but it's still not enough, and it will never be enough. 

"Just go." 

So she does. Mikasa starts to hate herself, just a little, because as soon as she's alone with her brother, an idiotic, irrational part of her wants Annie to come back.

* * *

She's spent, whittled down to nothing, but she still summons the strength to throw Eren over her shoulders—she doesn't check to see if he's breathing first, because knowing for sure would be too much for her—and she walks. The snow starts to fall, thin light flakes that balance on her eyelashes, and she blinks excessively. It's probably the only reason she hasn't cried yet. 

Armin and Christa are on watch when she comes within view of the building, standing on the roof, and even from some distance she can see all of the color leave Armin's face, the way he comes apart at the edges, like someone's passed an eraser over him and smudged his lines and shading. She sees them turn and run.

By the time she's reached the front steps, her friends are pushing the door open. Jean and Marco take Eren's limp body from her, and the sudden shift in weight hits her the wrong way. She strikes the sidewalk on both knees, nearly pitching forward, but Sasha and Mina appear at her sides and haul her up by the arms, and she lets them pull her.

"What the hell happened?" is the question of the hour, and Jean seems to be shouting it the most. Mina shakes her, her hands on Mikasa's cheeks, saying something that Mikasa doesn't catch. 

"Shit, there's a lot of blood," Connie mutters, his hands on Eren's chest. 

"GSW," Marco confirms, leaning close. 

Jean tears away from them and bodily moves Mina out of the way, looking Mikasa in the eyes. He isn't so kind in his demand for answers. "Mikasa, what the fuck happened to him? What's wrong with you?" 

She opens her mouth, but she can't find anything to say, and the water behind her eyes starts pushing with renewed vigor, clawing its way out. _No, not here_ , she thinks, shutting her eyes tight, but it's all for nothing. She cries like she hasn't cried in years, which she hasn't, cries so hard that her knees give out again and her shoulders shake too hard for Jean to get a grip on them. 

"H-hey, hey, calm down," he tries, his hands hovering awkwardly. None of them know how to deal with an emotional Mikasa Ackerman; neither does she.

It's Armin, white-faced and trembling, who knows what to do: deflect. "Guys, she's going to be okay. Let's take care of Eren." 

They do as he says. Jean throws Eren over one shoulder and they file upstairs one at a time, until she's left alone, sobbing into the lobby's ruined floor.

* * *

"He's going to be okay."

It rings in her ears a hundred times. _He's going to be okay. He's going to be okay. He's going to be okay._

She opens her eyes, raw from tears, and finds the speaker to be Armin, locks of blond hair escaping his ponytail and falling in his tired eyes.

"At least, that's what it looks like." Armin is sitting next to her bed, on the windowsill, his eyes on the door. She doesn't remember coming upstairs or getting under her covers, so she deduces that someone brought her here, and Armin's here to update her on her brother's condition. "He could get worse, though. Anything could go wrong right now." 

"What do we do?" she whispers hoarsely. 

"We watch him and hope for the best," he answers honestly. He looks hollow, like he's given everything and now there's nothing left in him, no substance. "These aren't the best conditions to be battling a near-fatal gunshot wound." 

"This is my fault." She ignores his protesting look and sits up with a groan, leaning back against the headboard. "I should have protected him." 

Armin offers a smile. "Eren's always been wild. There's only so much you can do." 

"No. This time, I really could have stopped him from getting hurt. I—"

But the sentence trails into nothing, and Armin grows concerned. "Mikasa, what happened out there?" 

She almost lies, again. She almost makes up a story of a Russian patrol catching them—which is true, to an extent—and glisses over the detail that is Annie Leonhardt, as she's done so many times in the past. But when she opens her mouth to speak, she finds that she's tired of lying, of cover-ups, and there's nothing to spill out now but the truth. 

So she tells Armin everything, from the first meeting to the last, and everything in between. 

Armin has this patented way of making people feel ashamed of themselves, and his expression—a little hurt, a little withdrawn—lives up to this reputation. Mikasa looks the other way. Lying always feels so manageable until you get caught.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he wants to know. 

"How could I?" She crosses her arms, uncomfortable. "It wasn't just wrong, it was—treasonous." 

He shakes his head, sighs. "Granddad always used to say you can't choose who you love. Guess he wasn't kidding." 

"Who said anything about love?" 

This time, his expression is knowing and superior. "Nobody puts themselves through that without a little love, Mikasa. It's pretty clear." 

Her face warms up, a foreign feeling for her, and she jumps out of bed before he can pat her hand patronizingly. The sudden motion sets the room to spinning. "Never mind that. All that matters right now is that Eren's half-dead because of me." 

"Don't blame yourself for this," Armin reprimands, getting to his feet as well. "You're not the one who shot him."

"I might as well have been," she spits, scowling. "He's never going to forgive me for this."

"He will. Are _you_ going to forgive yourself?" 

Point taken. 

"I made a promise to his mother," she says, turning around to look at him gravely. "Her dying words were 'Keep him safe, Mikasa.' And I've failed to fulfill her last wish." 

"He's still breathing, isn't he?" Armin reminds her, hopeful as ever. "Look, you can't hold onto this forever. Things happened and you didn't expect them, but you can't go back and change them. So now, you move forward. Got that?" 

He's right, as usual, and she heaves a sigh. "Right. Right. I just feel so—stupid." 

He doesn't immediately agree, instead tilting his head to the side curiously. "Did you really like her?"

"What?" 

"You heard me." 

"I—" _I did_ , she thinks. _Past-tense_. "For a while, I—I thought so. Not anymore. Not after this." 

"Then it wasn't stupid." Armin, wise as ever, squeezes her hand. "Well. It was a little—unfortunate. But not inherently _wrong_. So feel better, and be there for Eren. He needs it." 

"You're right." She turns rigidly, the taxing morning hitting her hard in her joints and ligaments. Her knuckles throb from making contact with Annie Leonhardt's face. "He's sleeping, isn't he?"

"Yep." Armin joins her and they head outside, down the hallway and into the apartment where Eren's resting. "He'll be out for a few days, I imagine." 

She doesn't respond. The sight of Eren lying pale and motionless under the duvet makes her feel like vines are growing in her stomach, wrapping around her organs and squeezing, and Armin has to pull her into the room by her wrist to get her to move forward.

"He's _okay_ ," Armin asserts, seeing her deer-in-headlights expression. "He's alive."

"What happens when he wakes up, Armin?" She looks at him, desperate to unload all of her fears on someone else for once. "What then?"

His controlled air slips, just a little. "It's time to come clean."

* * *

She spends her days dreading Eren's awakening and purging herself of Annie. Whenever she thinks about either of them, she distracts herself with the necessities of their little encampment—hunting, tending to the horses, collecting canal water and boiling it. But sometimes thoughts slip into the forefront of her mind uninvited, and she has to beat the pesky things from her head _(What if Eren remembers? What's Annie doing right now? Why should I care about her, anyway?)_ until she can give herself to her task fully.

She's carrying a bucket of water inside when Jean passes by, his face in a scowl. His default expression these days. He flags her down by the building's back door. 

"Hey, you got a second?"

Mikasa sets the bucket down and cracks her knuckles. "Sure." 

"I've got an idea," he says, voice hushed, eyes intense. "Marco and I were on patrol a few days ago and we saw a few Russians camping out in a shop a few blocks away. We've been tracking them, and it looks like they're sleeping there for now. They come back to the shop every night and stay until morning." 

"So?" 

"So, I think we should storm the place."

"Are you an idiot?" She looks over her shoulder as if she expects a Russian to be standing in the unkempt grass behind them. "We have nothing to fight them with." 

"Not exactly," he disagrees. "You brought back that rifle the day Jaeger got shot. That's something. With that, and the element of surprise, we can take them."

"Why are you so interested in killing them?" 

Jean crosses his arms defensively. "We'll kill most of them. But wouldn't it be smart to nab one, bring them back here, and beat some information out of them? Give them a taste of their own medicine." 

"They won't talk." The thought of a Russian bound and gagged in their new home is unsettled in her stomach. 

"Anyone will talk if they're hurting bad enough." There's a guilty but dutiful glint in his eye when he says this.

She remains firm in her opinion. "It's too risky." 

"We can't afford not to take risks, Mikasa," he reminds her. "We don't have a home to go back to, you heard what Mina said. New York is nothing to us now, and all we have is each other. We have to bust Smith and them out. Unless you're okay with being stuck here by ourselves for the rest of our lives." 

He's horrifically valid.

"We'll talk about it," she says, and he smiles with humor.

* * *

Two agonizing weeks of close calls pass before Eren opens his eyes. 

Christa's with him when it happens, opening the curtains to let a bit of natural light in, and she nearly jumps out of her skin when his gaze falls on her. 

"You're awake!" She rushes to the side of the bed and puts a hand to his warm forehead. He winces, eyes screwing shut, and his usually tan skin is far paler than she's ever seen it. "How do you feel?"

He just purses his lips and shakes his head half an inch, and she yells for the others. 

Mikasa and Armin arrive at the same time, having sprinted from their rooms to get there, and Jean and Marco rush in a few seconds later. Connie, Sasha, and Mina trail in from outside, clothes dusted white, and they all crowd around the bed, anxious to see for themselves that Eren is indeed, conscious. 

He cracks one eye open, training it on each face in turn, and tries to speak. His voice is a glorified croak. "Wha's hap'nin?" 

"You got hurt pretty bad, man," Connie supplies, his face unusually serious. "GSW to the chest. We thought you were a goner. Do you remember what happened?"

Mikasa's breath stalls, anticipating the worst in Eren's answer. She gets the best instead.

"No. Russians?" Eren asks, straining to focus.

"Russians." 

"Fuck." His head hits the pillow. 

"Don't worry about them." Jean pats the foot of the bed assuredly. "We're taking care of it." 

"We _might_ be taking care of it," Armin corrects him. Like Mikasa, he's queasy about staging an attack on a squadron of Russians. "Let's just keep our heads down for now."

Eren struggles to drag his head back up. "No."

"What?" 

"Do it," Eren insists, already catching onto the plan. "Kill them. Fucking _destroy_ them."

"Eren—"

"No," he repeats. "Don't tell me I'm being rash or angry or whatever. I don't care. I want them all to go back to Hell. All of them." 

They all share uncomfortable looks. They're used to Eren's explosive nature, but this anger is quiet and roiling, just under his skin instead of glowing through, and his eyes aren't the usual green they're so accustomed to.

"You just need to rest now," Armin says firmly. "We'll talk about this later."

Eren, placated for now and too tired to argue, lays his head back again and starts to drift off to sleep, and they file out of the room one by one. Connie shuts the door behind them and Jean whirls around, his voice lowered to let Eren sleep but still thrumming with urgency. 

"We've got to attack. Now." 

"Hey, man, relax—" Armin attempts, but Jean cuts him off. 

"No." He shoots a look at the closed door. "Eren's in there half-dead because we're acting like a bunch of scared kids. We're _soldiers_. You know what soldiers do? They protect their own." 

Armin works to keep his voice controlled. "Yeah, that's right. We _protect_ each other. But you're asking for revenge, Jean, and there's a big difference."

"Who cares? I'm tired of this _shit_. I'm tired of running and hiding and getting pushed down. What's the point of being in the Army if you don't fight back?" 

Sasha, for once, has a strangely serious expression. "The Army's not about fighting, it's about following orders." 

"What orders?" Jean mutters. 

He has a strong point.

* * *

"What's wrong with you, shortie?" Ymir prods. 

She and Annie are sitting with their backs against the prison's front building, watching the gate across the empty parking lot. Snow skips along the pavement. Neither of them have their heart in their job—none of the Americans are stupid enough to stay _this_ close to Russian headquarters. 

"Fuck off." 

"Jesus, tone it down." Ymir stretches her arms over her head, rifle lying on its side next to her. "You've had a serious pole up your ass the past few days." 

Annie's in no mood. "What part of 'fuck off' is too difficult for you to understand?"

"I don't know, I'm a little iffy on 'fuck' and not totally grasping 'off.'" 

"Can you go bother someone else for once?" Annie gets to her feet, sparing a cold glance for Ymir. "I don't want to talk to you." 

Ymir smiles unabashedly. "Well, I would bother someone else, but I don't really have friends. Besides Reiner and Bertl, but they're probably screwing in max security." 

"We're not friends." 

"Aw, you're a downer." Ymir stands too, picking her rifle up on the way. "Crack a smile every once in a while. Or has your face already frozen that way?"

Annie slings her rifle and turns. "Keep pushing it. I'm dying to break skin right now." 

"I can take you," Ymir laughs. She brings her fists up to chest level, feet spreading. "You're quick, yeah, but I can—"

The rest of the taunt chokes off when her face hits the ground, due to Annie's foot sweeping out and yanking Ymir's legs right out from under her. Spitting snow and gravel out, she gets up with a scowl and wipes her mouth. 

"That was a bitch move." 

"Then it was well deserved," Annie says, shrugging. 

"Alright, maybe." Ymir dusts herself clean and leans on the building again. "But, seriously. What's wrong with you?" 

_I can't even begin to explain this to you._

"I made a mistake," she says shortly.

"Care to elaborate?" 

"No."

Ymir offers an exaggerated eye-roll. "You know, this whole closed-off-stone-cold-bitch thing you've got going for you is getting old." 

"It's worked out pretty well this far." 

"Yeah, well, nothing lasts forever," Ymir reminds her. "We know that better than anyone."

* * *

Against Mikasa and Armin's adamant protests, the plan to storm the Russian patrol is enacted. 

Dark has just fallen when Jean leads them to the target. It's a ransacked diner, windows blown out, door busted in. In other words, it matches the other buildings on the street—dilapidated, nondescript, and unlikely to draw attention. The ideal hiding spot. 

"You sure about this?" Connie mutters, peering around the corner at the building. 

Jean leans around to look over his head. "Yeah, that's the place. They always go in there and camp out when it gets dark. By morning, they're out." 

"How do we know they're sleeping?" Sasha asks, an eyebrow raised skeptically. 

"We don't," Jean admits. He shoulders Annie's rifle. "But whether they're sleeping or not, they're not going to expect this. We have to milk the element of surprise for all its worth." 

Connie straightens up and draws a kitchen knife from his belt. "Got it. So we get in, kill most of them, and take one survivor back."

"That's the idea." Jean flicks the rifle's safety off and gestures for everyone to follow him. As they creep closer, he reiterates the plan. "Connie and I are going to go through the front windows. Marco, take Christa around the back. Mikasa, take the west side. Sasha, the east." 

They break off, moving shadow-like through the dark, and Mikasa slips around the side of the building. There are no doors, but a bank of windows lines the wall, and she ducks under them, waiting for the signal. 

Mentally, she arms herself with what she'll have to do if Annie Leonhardt is inside, which she acknowledges as a very real possibility. She'll have to kill her. Not brutally, not long and drawn-out. Just a quick, clean kill. And perhaps her life will finally go back to the way it used to be.

A pesky voice in her head butts in. _Do you really want things to go back to the way they were?_

She refuses to answer. 

Instead, she focuses on the hilts of the knives she holds—one in each hand—and the way they conform to her palms, the way they remind her of 3DMG swords, and how much she misses the weight of her gear and the power that came with it. 

The signal should be coming any minute now. 

Something loud and sudden. 

Jean said it'll be pretty obvious. 

And it is—there's the bark and flash as he fires the gun into the air from the front of the diner, and she vaults over the windowsill and into the building without another thought about it.

Bodies are jolting back to life all over. Russians in their white uniforms, sprawled on the cracked checkerboard floors and under tables, jumping to their feet all over the dark room. Moonlight from the shattered windows reveals how confused and disoriented they are, and before they can even reach for their weapons, the Americans are upon them.

Jean is a hurricane, the rifle in his hands spraying bullets into the nearest Russians, and Connie is just ahead of him, the knife in his hand flashing through the dusty air. From the opposite windows, Sasha appears like a ghost, swinging a machete as easily as she would a butter knife. 

A Russian runs at her and Mikasa remembers where she is. She kicks once and his knee snaps, the sound nearly as loud as the subsequent scream. As he's falling, she drives one of the knives upward to meet his body, and his neck impales itself on the blade with little effort on her part. Jerking the blade free, she flings the other one at a Russian who turns to face her. She falls with blood gurgling from her open mouth and her rifle dropping to her feet. 

Marco and Christa charge in from the backdoor just in time, taking out a trio of Russians before they can get their rifles up. There's just one left now. 

She stands in the center of the room with her rifle lying on the floor, both hands held up in a form of surrender. Tall, dark hair and skin, and posture that seems entirely too relaxed for someone whose life is in danger.

Mikasa knows who the lone survivor is before she even turns around. 

"Gotta love reunions," Ymir says, and Christa's knife clatters to the floor.

* * *

While they bind Ymir's wrists, Mikasa looks for _her_. 

She goes in circles around the room. The bodies of the Russians, sleep-addled and dead, lie scattered about, and she stoops to check each one, turning them over with a shaking hand. She didn't see Annie during the fight, but everything happened so fast that she certainly could have missed her in the fray. 

She shouldn't even care. It shouldn't matter to Mikasa whether Annie lives or dies, whether she's far away from here or face-down in her own blood. But she can't stop checking bodies, looking for _Leonhardt_ stitched to someone's breast or a shock of blonde hair. 

Annie's not here.

Mikasa's both relieved and disappointed, a uniquely uncomfortable experience. So she tries to tune back into the mission, to appear as engaged in their new prisoner as the others are. 

"Check it out, man," Connie says, a dark laugh edging out after his words. "We got our very own captive." 

"Don't dick around," Jean orders, wrenching the ties tighter. 

"Yeah, Connie, settle down." Marco, by the window, throws an anxious glance out onto the street. "Let's just get out of here before someone finds us."

Sasha, who's busily picking up discarded rifles and slinging them over her shoulders, kicks one of them in Marco's direction. "Here, Bodt. Try to relax."

Mikasa follows the conversation loosely, noticing that Christa's standing off to the side with her arms wrapped tightly around herself. When Connie begins to punch the air from excitement, she takes it as a cue to go to Christa's side, snapping her fingers to get the frazzled girl's attention.

"Christa? Are you alright?"

The girl jumps as if stricken, eyes wider than usual. Her gaze skips from Mikasa's to Ymir. "I-I'll be fine." 

"Are you hurt?"

"No, I'm not hurt," she insists, holding her arms out as if to showcase how untouched she is. 

Mikasa turns slightly to watch Jean gag Ymir with a rag, not believing that Christa's perfectly alright. "Even if you're not hurt, there's obviously something wrong with you."

Christa bites her lip and rocks on her heels, debating, and then lowers her voice considerably. "All I'm saying is, that girl is a lot smarter than we think she is. And maybe, we'd be better off killing her now."

* * *

Eren livens up exponentially when they return home, dragging their new prisoner between them and bearing a wealth of rifles and ammunition. He demands the story; Connie and Jean excitedly oblige, recounting the siege with extra attention to the amount of blood and the Russians' complete surprise.

"Rest easy tonight, man," Marco laughs, patting Eren's shin. "We finally won something." 

Later, on the roof, Armin and Mikasa aren't in such good spirits. 

"Yeah, it feels good for now," Armin says, his hands awkwardly holding a blood-splattered rifle. He swings his legs over the edge of the roof. "But the Russians at the prison are going to realize that a whole squadron is gone, and they're going to look around this area relentlessly. Then they'll find us. A few rifles won't help anything."

"If it comes down to that, we get the horses and run," she replies flatly. "We can't try to rescue them forever. At some point, we need to cut our losses." 

"It's sad, but I agree with you." He turns his head roughly in the direction of the prison, mouth twisted down. "I just hope they're not hurting too bad."

* * *

They leave Ymir in one of the spare apartments' bedrooms, bound at the wrists and ankles and tied to the headboard. Christa avoids the area as best as she can, to prevent herself from being chosen to watch the prisoner for the night, but with Armin and Mikasa on roof watch, Eren in bed, Mina with the horses, Jean, Marco, and Connie claiming exhaustion, and Sasha passed out in the hallway, she becomes the last viable choice. 

She sits down with her back to the door for a while, not eager to go inside, but Jean passes on his way from outside, dripping with cold water, insisting that she keep a closer eye on the captive. So, reluctantly, she goes into the bedroom.

Ymir smirks from ear to ear when she sees her, sitting up against the headboard casually, as if she isn't completely immobilized and at the will of her captors. "Well, this shitty situation just got a lot better." 

"Shut up." But there's no bite in her words, and Christa just wants to leave. 

"Feisty," Ymir compliments. She watches Christa pull a chair out from under an old desk, turning the chair to face the bed and then sitting down gingerly. "What, you're just going to sit there and watch me squirm in all these ropes? Kinky." 

Despite her best efforts, Christa's cheeks flare up at this, and she mentally berates herself yet again for allowing this particular Russian to have this control over her. "I told you to shut it." 

"But that shade of blush really goes with the room," she chuckles, tilting her head appreciatively. "I'm a big believer of interior design." 

Christa looks away hurriedly, not wanting to give Ymir the satisfaction, but it only makes the Russian laugh harder. "Jesus, you're easy to screw with." 

"Then why are you screwing with me?" Christa snaps. "Why can't you just be nasty and mean to me like the rest of your kind?" 

"Because I like you, Renz." Ymir grins again, and the American's stomach flutters. "Ain't that obvious?" 

_Unfortunately, it is._

"It's wrong," Christa says. 

"Who gives a shit?"

Good point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> october is a bad month for band kids but we're still kickin'


	16. we are today in the midst of a cold war

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was supposed to come out way earlier but i turned 17 last friday and got really high oops 
> 
> have an extra long chapter as my sincere apology

"I can't find Ymir's body," Reiner says, over and over. "She's not here. She's not here." 

Annie remains silent, picking through the bodies scattered around the diner's floor with clinical efficiency. Crouch, turn over, move on. She does this twice. Every body, every comrade. Ymir's nowhere to be found. 

"She must have escaped," Bertholdt says hopefully, his hands flaked with dried blood. 

Reiner snorts humorlessly. "No one escaped this. It's a fucking bloodbath." 

"Then where's her body?"

He has no reply. 

The watery sunlight pushing through the broken windows does nothing to lift their spirits, and after a time, they eventually admit that Ymir isn't here. Other members of their squad begin to pile the bodies of the dead outside on the sidewalk. Someone steps forward with a filched can of gasoline and douses the corpses with a lazy hand, then steps aside for a comrade to light a match. 

"Let's pack it in," a lieutenant calls. The Russians begin to move away. Annie, Reiner, and Bertholdt take up the rear, eyes peeled for a sign of Ymir. They find nothing.

"What do you think happened?" Bertl asks, a nervous sweat peeking over his brow. 

Reiner kicks a bit of debris out of his way, his expression moody. "Hopefully she got away. But I have the worst feeling that they took her." 

"Why the hell would they want to take her?" Even to her own ears, Annie's voice sounds hollow. 

"Revenge? Information? Fun?" Reiner's eyes are darker than she's seen them in a while. "There are plenty of reasons." 

"Still, we don't know where they are," Bertl reminds him. 

"Then we'll look," he barks. He changes his tone after a second thought. "Sorry. Didn't mean to snap."

Bertl smiles forgivingly; Annie ignores them entirely. She can't shake the thought that Mikasa Ackerman must have somehow been involved in the bloody scene they left behind. Her signature is all over it—the clean cuts across throats, perfectly straight, conservative lines that only she could finesse like that. She was here, that's for certain.

Annie berates herself for even caring where Mikasa's been or what she did there. The American was explicitly clear about the status of their relationship—namely, there was no relationship anymore. It's high time that Annie focuses on the mission again. She's in line to become a Junior Sergeant pretty soon; she has a future here, in the Russian Army, not with an American soldier who wants to murder her. 

That's what she tells herself, anyway.

* * *

Christa's not proud of herself, but she falls asleep.

Ymir drifts off not long after her laughter subsides, and Christa curls up in her chair with her chin on her arms, settling in for the night. There's a safe distance between them. The binds on the Russians' wrists seem tight enough. 

That's how she falters in her vigilant watching, and she jolts awake just before dawn, when the room is still pulling shadows over itself like covers. Ymir, awake now and sitting up, grins.

"Had a nice nap?" she inquires.

"Sh," Christa hisses, jumping to her feet. She inspects the door briefly to ascertain whether or not anyone's walked in on her sleeping on the job. 

"No one's been in here," Ymir adds, understanding what Christa's doing. "So you can relax." 

"I can't relax with a _prisoner_ in my care."

"Who says?" Ymir, grinning as always. "It's not like I'm going anywhere." 

"That's right, you're not," Christa asserts. She shakes the last of her sleep off. "I'm going to see what my orders are— _you_ stay here and don't make trouble." 

Ymir waves lazily as Christa steps out. The hallway is still quiet, but she hears the murmurs of her friends waking up behind closed doors. To her relief, Jean, Mikasa, and Armin step out from one of the rooms to the right, discussing their next moves with hushed voices. 

"She's gotta have something we can drag out of her," Jean insists, glowering as usual. 

"I'm sure she does," Armin agrees. "But we have to be careful in the interrogation room. If we don't go in there with a plan, someone's going to slip up and the prisoner won't talk."

"So what do you have in mind?"

"We want information about our comrades," he says, fighting his blond hair into a rubber tie. "We want to know everything about the prison so we can get them out. But we can't reveal that we lost our headquarters in New York. As soon as she figures that out, she'll be reluctant to give us anything. We can't look weak." 

"Got it," Jean says, nodding. He notices Christa by Ymir's door. "Everything okay in there?" 

"Everything's fine." She lowers her voice. "She's awake." 

"Good," Jean mutters. He has a rifle slung over his shoulder. Mikasa does too.

"What are you going to do to her?" Christa asks nervously, trying not to show concern. 

Jean transfers the rifle to his hands, a menacing subtext. "We need info that she's got. We're going to get it."

Mikasa misinterprets the pallor of Christa's skin for a dislike of gore and lays a steady hand on her arm. "You don't have to be there. We can take it from here."

"No, no, I'll be fine." She shifts out of reach, steeling herself. "Let's go."

They reenter the room with stone expressions. Ymir's relaxed attitude doesn't change.

"You brought friends?" Ymir asks, lips tugging up on one side.

Christa doesn't reply, sinking back against the wall as the others move forward. Mikasa and Jean flank either side of the bed like sentries while Armin stands at the end of it, making eye contact with the prisoner. Ymir's smile falters when she catches Mikasa's gaze, but other than that, she seems unaffected.

"Not exactly my crowd, but I'm sure we can still have some fun." 

"Oh, we'll be having fun alright." Jean flicks the rifle's safety off noisily. His frown is lost in the stubble he's grown over the past few weeks. "Well. Maybe _you_ won't." 

"Talk is cheap." Mikasa's rifle falls to the side, her free hand coming up smoothly with a twisted knife in its grip. "Next time you open your mouth, it would be in your best interests for something useful to come out of it." 

Ymir purses her lips, more rattled by Mikasa's threat than Jean's, and she doesn't speak. 

Armin steps in seamlessly, arms crossed and expression neutral. "Why was your squadron camping out in the city?" 

"Real estate is a bitch these days—" 

The snarky reply scrapes into a growl of pain; Mikasa lashes out with the knife and leaves a cut across Ymir's cheekbone that bubbles with blood instantaneously. The Russian jerks her head away, spitting blood from the corner of her lips as it drips into her mouth. "What the _fuck_?"

"I was very clear." Mikasa cleans the blade on the torn bedspread, expression as blank as ever. "Become an asset, or become a corpse. Your choice." 

"It's not my information to give," she grinds out.

"And yours isn't my life to take," Mikasa replies. "But that isn't stopping me."

"She's serious, in case you're wondering," Jean supplies, now grinning smugly. 

"I _wasn't_ , asshole." 

"Glad we're on the same page." 

"Save it, Jean," Armin interrupts. He sets them back on track. "You didn't answer the question. What was your squadron doing in the city?"

It only takes a twitch of Mikasa's knife for Ymir to answer. "What do you think, dumbass? We were looking for _you_." 

"Why?"

"God, you guys are stupid." She rolls her eyes. They land on the blade. "Obviously we want to get rid of you if you're not smart enough to just beat it for good. If you insist on sticking around, you pose a threat. We eliminate threats." 

Jean looks at Armin questioningly. The blond eventually nods in acceptance. "That reasoning checks out." 

"Great. Am I released now or are you going to waste my time some more?"

Ymir grunts when Jean elbows her roughly in the ribs, fed up with her snark. "Don't talk unless you're answering a question, scum." 

She sneers at him, only looking away because Armin's speaking again. "I want to know more about the prison. Where are my comrades being held?" 

"What, those officers? Half of them are dead," Ymir estimates, shrugging one shoulder. "The ones who are still alive are all stuck in maximum security."

"What's the guard schedule like?"

Ymir's eyebrows creep up. "What the hell does that matter? You're not seriously planning a _prison_ break, are you?"

Mikasa fists her hand in Ymir's collar and knocks her head back against the headboard, eyes flat and distant. "You don't ask questions, you answer them." 

"Well?" Armin prods. "Answer the question." 

Ymir snarls at Mikasa, but with her total lack of mobility, she has little option but to do as she's told. "It's not my jurisdiction, but I've been down there a few times. There aren't as many guards as you'd think." 

"Meaning?" 

"Meaning there aren't as many guards as you'd think," she repeats, a vein in her neck pushing up against her skin from the pressure Mikasa's putting on it. "That's all I know."

Armin’s eyes are chunks of ice—cold and heavy, staring Ymir down. He eventually holds up one hand, and Mikasa releases the Russian’s throat. 

“Your entire squadron is dead,” he says flatly, gaze unwavering. “We killed them. We know it, and your commanders know it. I want to know what your people are going to do next.” 

“How the fuck should I know? I’m just a soldier.” 

“Everyone has a pattern, including your superiors,” Armin goes on, arms crossed. “Give me something to work with, or you’ll end up like the rest of your squadron did.” 

Ymir narrows her eyes, mouth drawn in a tight line. Mikasa flips the knife over the backs of her knuckles. A small movement, meant to intimidate more than anything else, and Ymir catches it out of the corner of her eye. She speaks. 

“They’re going to want revenge,” she says gravely. “It’s always about revenge.” 

“They’re going to want to kill us, you mean.” 

“Most likely, yeah.” She shifts her gaze from Mikasa to Armin to Jean and back. “And when they find you, you’re not going to survive. They’ll bring everything they have. They’ll wipe you out completely.” 

The silence that falls after her words is laced with tension. Jean immediately grips his rifle a little tighter; Armin’s knuckles are white; the blade goes still in Mikasa’s hand. 

Armin’s voice is steady when he asks a final question. “How close are they to finding us?” 

Ymir needs no prompting. _“Close.”_

“Son of a bitch,” Jean mutters, running a hand over his hair. 

“Relax,” Armin tells him. He glances back at Ymir. “You’ve been useful.” 

“Great. Am I free now?” 

“Doesn’t work that way,” Jean says, slinging his rifle. “We’re going to keep you alive for a while, just in case we find some other reason to want you that way.” 

“And when you outlive your usefulness, we’ll kill you.” Coming from Mikasa Ackerman, there’s no doubt that Ymir’s life will end. 

Christa takes a tentative step forward, reappearing from the fringe as suddenly as she disappeared. “But what do we do with her now?” 

“Leave her tied up,” Jean answers, already turning towards the door. “Keep a guard on her at all times. Nothing too complicated.”

“You can go rest up, Christa,” Armin says, smiling. “We’ll find someone else to take this watch.” 

Knowing that any kind of protest would seem highly suspicious, Christa thanks him and starts to leave. But she can’t help but see the disappointment on Ymir’s blood-stained face as she goes.

* * *

Levi knows one truth in his life: All things come to an end. 

When the Russians cut his flesh and leave him, he doesn’t worry. The blood will stop. The pain even sooner. Eventually, his life will end as well. These are facts. Irrefutable and solid. 

As solid as the man who stands over him now. Another nameless Russian with malice sewn into his skin, leaking out of him like radiation. The man leans in close, face twisted with grotesque intrigue. 

“You aren’t like the others,” the Russian notes, interest flaring in his eyes. “You don’t scream.” 

Levi meets his eyes with his usual bored mask, eyelids half open, mouth just slightly turned down. “Why waste my breath?” 

“A fine philosophy, my friend.” 

“I’m a man of great thought.” 

“And greater resolve,” the soldier says. Their conversation is so cordial, so casual, it’s almost as if Levi isn’t chained to a sink and the Russian isn’t wielding a knife against him. 

The man stoops down, elbows on his knees, blade held loosely. “Unfortunately, as much as I admire your resilience, it’s not my duty to applaud you for your strength.” 

“Rather, it is to find my weaknesses.” 

“Indeed.” His hand moves nearly too fast for Levi to catch the motion, and when he looks down, he sees the knife leave a shallow gash across his chest, cutting through his tattered shirt just under his collarbone. The pain is immediate, his brain kicking into a panic when it registers the proximity of the injury to his vital organs. “This is simply business, Captain.” 

Indeed.

The Russian stays a while longer, marking Levi’s skin with more evidence of his tragic captivity, and then he goes. All things must end.

But in the haze of blood loss and stinging wounds, Levi hears a conversation just outside of his cell, between the man and another Russian voice—the commander, Korev. The men speak their native Russian, which Levi understands enough to piece together the gist of the dialogue. 

“Lieutenant Daskuvitz.”

“Commander Korev, sir.”

“I’m glad I found you,” the commander says, his voice far more pleasant with his soldiers than it is with his prisoners. “I have a task for you.” 

“I live to serve, Commander.” 

“Excellent. It’s in regards to what happened to Igor’s squadron.” 

“I had heard that the Americans eliminated them completely.” 

“More or less, yes, they’re all dead.” Korev sighs heavily. “I had truly hoped that, for their sake, the Americans we set free would go on their way. They are all so young; children with assault rifles, honestly.” 

“So it was they who attacked Igor’s men?” 

“Undoubtedly. That’s where you step in, my friend.” 

“How may I be of service, sir?” 

“We can’t allow this cruel act of warfare to go unanswered,” Korev explains, voice still heavy with mock sadness. “You must choose as many men as we can spare and find these Americans, and then destroy them. It’s only right.” 

“I imagine you wish to leave some men behind to watch the prisoners?” 

“Some, yes.” A smile can be heard in the commander’s words. “Just a few. I would like to scare the daylights out of the Americans when we find them; we’ll need numbers.” 

“Will you be joining us, Commander?” 

“Of course, Daskuvitz. I would like to watch the light leave their eyes as they die.” 

“I would like that as well, sir.”

* * *

Afternoon is beginning to shake hands with dusk when they gather on the roof for their bastardized dinner, all of the specialists (save for Eren, who's still confined in his bed per Armin's command) settling down on the gravel and allowing themselves a brief moment of relaxation. Any calm they've grasped onto is immediately lost when Armin speaks. 

"I think we should break them out tonight," he says, his eyes old and far away. 

_"What?"_ Connie spits water, his eyes widening to an anatomically-alarming size. 

"It should be tonight," Armin repeats, more firmly. "We're never going to be any more prepared for this than we are now. We have weapons from the Russian squadron, supplies that are dwindling every day, and horses. The longer we wait, the harder this isn't going to be."

"Yeah, supplies are going fast," Marco agrees, mouth turned down with hesitance. "But don't you think we should put a little more planning time into this?" 

"There is no time." Armin gets to his feet, turning to look west, where the prison sits and the sun sets. "We've all seen it. The Russians are stalking the city every night looking for us, and they bring more soldiers every day. Sooner or later they're going to find us." 

Jean rubs his chin thoughtfully. "So you're suggesting a preemptive strike." 

"Exactly. The prison is obviously more unguarded than ever, based on how many soldiers they've been sending out to look for us. If we can manage to slip around them and get back to the prison while they're here in the city, we might have a chance." 

Sasha, scraping the bottom of a can with a fork, pauses. "And how are we supposed to get around a small army?" 

"It's got to be a diversion," Armin eventually decides, thoughtful. "I've thought of that, too. We'll set a fire. A huge one. The smoke will attract the Russians—because who else but us could set a fire that big?—and they'll come running. We just have to skirt around them, get to the prison while they're distracted, break the officers out, and _run_." 

"You make it sound easy," Jean scoffs, standing up as well. 

"I know it won't be. But we're running out of time." 

"What about Eren?" His name is dry in Mikasa's throat. 

"He'll have to come with us," Armin advises. "We won't be able to come back here." 

Christa clears her throat. "And what are we going to do with Y—the prisoner?" 

"She's coming too," Armin says. "We can use her as a bargaining chip if we have to, and if the mission is successful, we'll leave her at the prison." 

Under his breath, Jean mutters, "Don't see why we don't just kill her," but Marco nudges him disapprovingly and he falls quiet. 

"So this is really happening?" 

"This is happening."

"Okay," Jean eventually says, after a pregnant silence. "Then we have to move. Nightfall is going to be our best friend. Connie, Marco, come with me. We're going to get working on this fire. Everyone else, start gathering supplies. Saddle up the horses. And don't forget to grab a gun." 

Mikasa stays on the roof to keep watch, and from that standpoint, she can see Jean, Connie, and Marco walk a few streets over with cans of gasoline in their grip, conversing in the middle of the road for a while before taking action. She watches them douse a building with gasoline and then back away, Jean ducking in close to throw a match before skipping backwards. The fire is instantaneous; it erupts from the tiny flame and begins licking away at the building with reckless abandon. The boys observe its destruction for a few seconds.

Once they're closer to home, Mikasa heads downstairs and surveys operations inside. Mina is out back with the horses, preparing them for the journey, and Christa and Sasha are busily packing supplies away, utilizing whatever types of bags they can find in the building. From Eren's room, she hears Armin's voice. 

" . . . So that's the gist of it. Come on, we've got to get moving." 

* * *

There are four horses and a wagon; they load the wagon with supplies, leaving enough room for Mina, Marco, Eren, Armin, Ymir, and Christa to settle in. Two of the horses are tied up to the wagon to pull it along, manned by Sasha and Connie, while Jean and Mikasa saddle up the two remaining horses. They leave in such formation: Jean and Mikasa leading, Sasha and Connie just behind, and the wagon trailing them. 

Jean repeatedly rides ahead of them, checking the route to ensure that they're not running straight into an ambush, and they're grateful for it. The whole of the city now smells like smoke; the one building must have spread its fire to the others on the block, and a great big cloud of gray rises up from the site, so obvious and conspicuous that the Russian's can't possibly ignore it. 

The gravity of their task becomes apparent to them when they hear a sound that they've all silently been dreading: footsteps in great number, and voices.

They're in the middle of a wide street when the noise reaches them, and after a shared glance, Jean and Mikasa both spur their horses in that direction, signalling for the wagon to stop while they investigate. Two blocks over, they dismount and move on foot, creeping through the many shadows that newly-fallen night has graced them with, until they find them. 

The Russians have come in droves. They fill the entire street with bodies, most of them on foot, some on horseback, all armed to the teeth; their faces are twisted with a gleeful type of bloodlust. Mikasa and Jean drop to their stomachs in the snow and watch. The battalion of Russians appears to be headed in the direction of the fire, just as they'd hoped. The officers keep raising binoculars to their eyes and inspecting the plume of smoke that curls up to meet the sky. 

"Armin, you smart son of a bitch," Jean says, after they've backed away and sneaked back to their horses. A few streets over, the sound of the battalion is obtrusively loud. 

Mikasa swings up into the saddle, waiting for him to do the same. "Don't congratulate him yet. There's a lot left for us to do." 

They ride back and deliver the news to their anxious comrades, who brighten visibly upon hearing it. Jean warns them in the same fashion that Mikasa just warned him. "Let's not get too excited; we've got to move." 

They set out again with renewed purpose, the gravity of their mission settling heavily over all of them. No one speaks (Ymir makes a few attempts, but she's bound and gagged far too tightly to allow any of her sarcastic comments to slip through). Several times, Mikasa reaches up to hold her scarf for strength, only to painfully be reminded that her scarf was lost in the prison somewhere. The cold air on her neck mocks her. 

Leaving the city limits is a small relief. They feel the cushion of distance between them and their enemies as if it's a physical comfort, and it invigorates them.

Returning to the prison is horrifically familiar. The state road they've been traveling eventually branches into the side road that leads up to the property's gates, and even from some distance, they can smell the rot of the bodies that were left in the parking lot following their release, the corpses of their comrades whose lives were ended between a Rottweiler's jaws. The fresh snow does nothing to cover the stink. 

The gate is locked. They eventually decide that barging in through the front door is pretty conspicuous anyway, and instead circle around the back of the perimeter, finding a back gate for trucks and shipments that Jean happily shoots the lock off of. The noise of the rifle's retort sends all of their heartbeats into a sprint, but after several tense moments, when no one comes to investigate, they continue. 

The horses and wagon are left just outside the back gate. Eren, too weak to stand for very long, remains with Ymir and the supplies, vowing to keep a close watch of the prisoner and the horses. They leave him a rifle and their blessing, but they can't dawdle; the Russians might already be on their way back. 

In the maintenance entrance that they utilize, they can already tell that the prison is nearly empty. The hallways are dark, void of footsteps or conversations, and their own steps seem to echo in the halls. When the hall splits off in three directions, Jean gives signals―he, Marco, and Christa move off in one direction; Mina, Sasha, and Connie go in the other; Mikasa and Armin take the last branch. Before they separate, they share final looks of dutiful understanding, but there isn't time for any last words. 

Mikasa and Armin stay shoulder-to-shoulder, clearing the halls with clinical efficiency. No Russians yet, although they see some corpses in the cells that they pass. Ymir's words return to them― _the ones who are still alive are stuck in maximum security_ ―and they search for this section of the prison with fervor, tired of seeing dead friends and leaders, tired of smelling death rising up from the floor and radiating from the walls. 

_"что ебать?!"_

_Goddammit,_ Mikasa thinks, the only conscious thought she can form before a fist slams into her jaw. 

It's enough to knock her down, but she throws out an arm and grabs the bar of a nearby cell door, keeping her balance. The taste of blood is metallic in her mouth as she turns her head to meet the guard's eyes. His shock doesn't interfere with his instinct to kill, and this time, his hand reaches for the gun on his hip. He doesn't get that far―Armin turns his rifle around and swings, clipping the Russian in the forehead. The man falls to his knees, grunting in pain, but never gets up; Mikasa kicks him in the same spot where Armin's rifle connected with his skull, and he passes out.

They move quickly, gagging him with a strip of his own uniform and then taking the keys from his belt to unlock the nearest cell. Once he's securely locked up, they continue on, taking more care to watch out for guards. The signs help them on the way: MAXIMUM SECURITY → often flashes at them over doorways and in the halls, and they follow these gems on fast legs, desperate to get to the end of the mission. 

When they finally reach the maximum security, they find Jean's squad already there, taking on four guards at once. A gunshot rings out as a guard points his rifle at Marco's head, but Jean shoulders him out of the way, lifting his own weapon and pumping slugs into the guard's chest. Christa, always an efficient fighter, aims only for the spot between eyeballs, and brings down a guard in such a fashion. Mikasa and Armin hurry forward and dispatch the last two guards. They'd originally hoped to avoid fatalities, but their own lives will always mean more to them than their enemies', and they swallow their morals. 

Mina, Sasha, and Connie join up with them just as they're done pushing the bodies aside. The entrance to the max security wing is slightly ajar and beckoning them forward. 

"You all ready for this?" Jean whispers, reloading his rifle. 

"I was born ready," Connie replies, and Sasha kicks him. 

Armin pushes the door open. They find that the maximum security cells don't have bars, but instead have thick metal doors with small windows set in them. They peer through the windows at length, but it seems that every time they look, another dead officer is staring back at them with voided eyes, seeing nothing and signalling the worst. 

"What if they're all dead, man?" Marco asks, voicing what they're all thinking. 

"Don't say that," Christa says, but her voice has no conviction. They come across the body of Colonel Dot Pixis next. 

In the final winding hallway of cells, they find the last survivors. 

Mina looks into the first cell, and she screams. They expect the worst: a grotesque death of a respected elder. Somehow, it's worse. When they tear Mina away from the window and look through, all of their stomachs drop through the floor. 

General Erwin Smith meets their eyes through the chicken-wire-laced glass, but their attention soon falls on his arm, or the lack thereof. 

He's alive, but he might as well be dead. 

What's the use of a soldier without an arm? 

The others vie to get the keys in order and open his cell, but Mikasa's worry for her uncle, who she's hasn't seen yet, suddenly flares at the sight of their fallen general. She swipes a ring of keys from a dead guard and hurries from cell to cell. Sometimes, the soldiers within are alive―Mike Zacharius looks at her with dull intrigue when she passes him―but they aren't _Levi_ , who, out of nowhere, she desperately needs to see. 

She finds him lying on the floor of his cell with his back to the door. There's no telling if he's alive or not, so she fumbles with the keys until one fits and the door swings open, and she moves inside with the speed of molasses, now afraid of what she'll find when she turns him over.

Fortunately, he turns over on his own, and he looks at her. Bruised and bloody as he is, his expression is still as bored as ever.

"Took you long enough, Ackerman." 

He's going to be just fine.

* * *

Out of the countless brave men and women who were left behind in the prison, they only save nine: Levi, Smith, Zoë, Dok, Zacharius, Ral, Bozado, Jinn, and Schultz. Only the strongest could survive. 

They're all wounded, weak, and weary; most of them can barely walk, and so they have to lean heavily on their rescuers. Connie, the only specialist without an officer hanging off his shoulders, leads the way through the prison, rifle up and ready. They encounter no guards. It's almost too easy, which sets them all one edge. 

No words of gratitude or praise are exchanged yet. No words are exchanged period, and they return to Eren and Ymir in record time and go over the conditions of their escape. 

"The Russians have horses," Armin theorizes. "We need them."

Connie and Jean scout the grounds and eventually spot an old shed that the Russians are using as a stable, calling the others over to give them a hand. They cut the horses free of their ropes and lead them back to the truck entrance, where they're distributed to all who are strong enough to ride on their own. Ultimately, Eren, Smith, and a barely-conscious Dok are the only ones left in the wagon. 

There's a final variable to be solved before they can leave: Ymir. 

"Let's just kill her," Jean growls, bringing his rifle up. 

"Then we're no better than them." Armin puts a hand on the muzzle of Jean's gun, lowering it. 

"So what the hell are we supposed to do with her? We don't have time for this." 

Armin nods his chin towards the door into the building. "Leave her in there. Let them handle it." 

"Fine." Jean sneers at Ymir, knelt on the ground with a scowl on her face. "Any volunteers?" 

"I've got it!" Christa, to their surprise, darts forward and hauls Ymir up by the arm. "It'll only take a second." 

Ymir doesn't struggle as Christa leads her back into the building, down the maintenance halls until the chill from outside no longer reaches them. She leaves Ymir's wrists tied but reaches up and tugs the gag free. 

"About fucking time," Ymir spits, working her jaw. 

"Sh." Christa looks over her shoulder to make sure they're alone, then continues. "I just wanted to say, sorry my friends almost tortured you." 

"That was nothing," Ymir says, sounding far more confident than she did back at their makeshift headquarters. "They didn't do shit." 

Christa rolls her eyes. "You don't have to be so mean all the time, you know." 

"Of course I do, princess. It's a dog eat dog world out here, didn't you know?"

Oh, Christa knows that very well. 

"Fine, then. I'm leaving." 

She takes a half-step back, expecting Ymir to stop her, but she doesn't. Well, not really. A quick kiss on swollen lips never really stopped anything.

* * *

They set out again once a strangely off-balance Christa rejoins them, their numbers doubled with their new additions and their horses stomping out rhythms on the snowy ground as they head back to the main road. They move as fast as they can without endangering themselves—the ice clinging to the roads isn't easy on the horses' hooves—and keep their eyes peeled for interceptions. 

This time, they send Mikasa ahead to scout for Russians; she accepts this responsibility gratefully, glad to ride ahead in the dark night with the wind whipping her face and the sheer loneliness of a dead city to greet her. In the distance, the smoke from their fire is still raging upwards, but this doesn't mean that the Russians are still preoccupied by it, or that they're still searching the area around it. 

She leaves the group behind once more. The wide highway is beginning to smell of freshwater—up ahead, she can see a bridge yawning over the Potomac River, a river nearly large enough to compare to the Hudson back home. She spurs the horse forward, deciding that she'll comb the bridge and the area just beyond and then return to the others. 

Mikasa's hand goes to her hip, curling around the flare gun that she picked up at the prison. She's not supposed to have it, really. If she sees enemies, she's supposed to turn and gallop back to the others to warn them; but she's a strict realist. She knows that if she runs into a Russian battalion, she'll most likely be shot down before she can return to her comrades. Even if she does manage to get back, she'll only be leading the enemy back to the Americans. 

It's only sensible.

They're smart enough to realize what it means if she shoots a flare into the air; they saw her strap it to her hip before they left, and they'll make that connection if it comes to that. They'll also realize that she's most certainly a dead woman, but that won't matter if they can survive. One life for twenty is a fair trade. 

On the bridge, she slows the horse down, the report of its hooves on the ground unnerving her. She has a horrible feeling about this. It's too dark out to see very well, which only adds to her unease. Now going at a trot, she draws the flare fully and holds it up just-so. She swears that she can sense humans up ahead.

Her instincts prove right.

She slows to a stop before she reaches the end of the bridge, because she can go no further. 

The way is blocked completely by white uniforms and rifles that stand out even in the moonless night. They don't advance against her, because they don't have to; one soldier can't hurt two hundred, and so they revel in the moment. 

One man moves forward, on his horse, and she recognizes his voice even before his face becomes visible. 

Commander Korev is as deceptively pleasant as ever. "What a fine surprise. Specialist Ackerman—so glad to make your acquaintance once more." 

Her palm is growing warm around the flare gun, but she stays her hand for the moment. She says nothing.

"How unfortunate for you and yours," Korev says, leveling his handgun at her. "You should have left when you had the chance. Now you all die." 

He shoots, but the bullet doesn't reach her—it burrows into her horse's thick skull, and the animal dies without making a sound. Mikasa jumps off of it just as it tips over sideways, hitting the ground with a deafening thud. Her rifle falls with it; the flare is still in her hand. 

Korev dismounts as well, easily, comfortable with the thought of the army behind him. He takes a few steps closer. "You will be the first of the last, Specialist. This is a great honor." 

"Unlikely," she says, and she raises her hand, and squeezes the trigger. 

The flare is blindingly bright, momentarily illuminating the shocked anger on Korev's face, the indifference on Mikasa's, and the malicious expressions of the Russians behind him. In that odd, weightless second of red light, Mikasa looks for Annie, for reasons she does not care to explore, but she doesn't see her. 

"You stupid child," Korev snarls. The gun flips around in his hand until he's grasping the muzzle, and he swings, the butt of the weapon striking her in the temple with a force that sends her to her knees in the snow. He strikes again, this time in the back of her head, and stars dance in her vision as she slumps, falling forward completely. 

_It's better this way,_ she reminds herself, as blood begins trickling behind her ear. _One life for many._

"I could have had all of your lives," he says, his hand closing around her throat and dragging her back to her feet. They're moving. Stumbling on her part, stomping on his. The soldiers watch. 

He pushes her to the edge of the bridge. The railing isn't high—probably as high as her lower back—and when he applies pressure, and she bends backwards, the rush of the Potomac far below is like war cries in her ears. 

"I could shoot you." Korev's other hand fists in the fabric of her shirt for leverage. "But that's too easy." 

He tightens his grip.

"It's a long way down, Specialist. And that water's very cold. Have a nice trip." 

Korev heaves her over the railing, and she falls. 

The time that she's in free fall, between bridge and water, is horrific, lasting a half a second and several eons all at once, but it's a cakewalk compared to the water below. 

_Cold_ doesn't describe it. The pain of impact is lost in the complete and utter shock to her system, frying every nerve and locking every muscle, and she can't force herself to move. She sinks. Under the water it's nearly pitch black, and the deeper she goes, the darker it gets, until she can't see anything and she wonders why she even wants to. 

It's a hopeless situation if she's ever been in one.

 _Just let go—you chose this_ , she thinks to herself. Her body's already given up; nothing moves. It's her stubborn lungs and mouth that conspire for her survival, refusing to let the water around her rush in and end her life. 

But eventually, the choice isn't hers; the river's current catches up to her, and her body begins moving against its will. 

The need to breathe suddenly becomes too hard to ignore, and even though the surface is still some ways overhead, and she knows it's a death sentence, her mouth opens wide of its own volition. The water lets itself in eagerly, and she learns a new meaning behind the word _suffocating_ in the way that the river presses into her throat and batters her chest from the inside. She feels heavier, unbearably heavier, and for the first time in some time, she feels entirely helpless. 

_Fight, dammit._

The river is still bloodcurdling in how cold it is, and moving her limbs feels like stabbing herself in her joints and ligaments, but she does it nonetheless, kicking jerkily and clawing at the water, hoping that whatever direction she's chosen is _up_. The current helps some, pushing her along, and she goes with it, hacking and coughing, ice water pushing in and out of her. 

Black spots are starting to intrude on her already-blackened line of sight, and she begins to acknowledge that this may be the end. It's so disheartening, a calm part of her notes, to die like this, as helpless as a newborn, killed not by guns or knives or Titans but by the elements, by the cruel mother of cruel nature. 

The edge of death makes her more philosophical than usual, the same part of her adds. 

She feels unconsciousness begin to rub her back and welcome her sweetly when the outside world interrupts once more, and two hands grab her by the collar. They wrench her head above the surface. The air fights the water for the territory of her lungs, and, half-dead, barely conscious, she almost wishes the hands would let her go again.

They don't. They keep pulling, until she feels the water replaced with snow. She only knows it's snow because her eyes are half-open and she sees the white powder beneath her; its temperature doesn't register on her skin, which should worry her, but doesn't at the moment. 

The hands roll her onto her back, and she fights to open her eyes just a little wider, just to get a glimpse of her rescuer, but the person stays out of her limited field of vision. Ultimately, it doesn't matter. They speak, and that voice is more than enough indicator for Mikasa, even in her sorry state. 

"You fucking idiot," Annie says, soft hands resting on Mikasa's shoulders. "You're a piece of work, you know that?"


	17. stockholm syndrome

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was not supposed to take this long and i deeply apologize for that, but the end of the semester kind of hit all of us with a truck. anyway, break's just started and we should see a definite improvement in update speed for the next week and a half
> 
> (happy christmas to those who celebrate it, happy holidays to those who celebrate something else, and happy december 24th to those who don't celebrate anything i guess (: )

For obvious reasons, Mikasa damn near coughs her lungs out and then passes out. 

She regains consciousness an indeterminable amount of time later, reluctantly; her chest still burns from the river water, and she wakes up shivering, everything trembling from cold. Even far removed from the Potomac, the chill remains, and her teeth ache from chattering. 

Moving is painful beyond belief, but she opens her eyes and lifts her head regardless, fighting the protests of her body. The room around her would be pitch black if not for the lit fireplace to her immediate right, a surprising and much appreciated addition to the décor. The heat from the fire tickles her right side, and she scoots over in the narrow bed, eager to get closer to any source of warmth she can find. 

Holding a hand out towards the fire, she forces her muddled brain to think again. _You fell in the river. What happened after that?_

But she doesn't need to ask herself that. She knows exactly what happened, and who pulled her out of the water.

* * *

The flare is blinding in the night sky, a red beacon that shoots up into the low-hanging clouds and cleaves them in two. 

The Americans watch it go, and they're quiet. 

"She picked up a flare back at the prison," Jean says, eyes wide. He looks younger than they've seen in a while. 

"And if she fired it, that means there's trouble," Connie adds darkly. "Armin?"

Armin knows that he's supposed to be the thinker right now, that he's supposed to come up with their next course of action, but his mind goes blank; it's a defense mechanism, he realizes, to protect him from a stark truth: If Mikasa Ackerman fired that flare, she had no other option, and now, she's dead.

It's the only logical course of thinking—flares are too obvious to be used in situations of stealth. Only someone who was cornered would use it, someone who knew that they had one final move to make, and that's exactly what happened.

"Armin? Armin!" 

Jean keeps saying his name over and over, like that's going to change their horrific fate—going to change the fact that one of his greatest friends is dead—

It's a poisonous line of thinking, he knows, to let the mind stumble down a path of grief so deep as this, and some people never come back after walking it. He understands the process. Mourning is cancerous; it eats away at the brain and the bones and the cells, and then it takes away those things that go deeper than membranes and atoms—the will to live, the will to fight. Succumbing to the cancer is easy. Fighting back, not so much. 

Jean pulls his horse over now and shakes his shoulder, still shouting hoarsely, and the others watch them with shell-shocked expressions. They specialists are too young to know what to do, and the officers are too weak to intervene, and they're all waiting for Armin to snap out of it. 

"What are we doing, man?" Connie now rides up, his hand on Armin's other shoulder. With Jean too wound up to think straight, and Mikasa—not with them, Armin's next in line to lead them; he's the strategist, but he's not acting like it. 

"Armin, come on." 

His brain starts whirring again, laboriously, like a machine being turned on after lying dormant for years, and he considers the facts. 

Mikasa Ackerman is dead. 

She encountered the Russians just before her death, and she chose to fire the flare in her last moments. 

It's with this thought that his already cold blood feels colder, because the realization is like ice water in his nerves. 

He snaps out of it. 

"We need to go," he says suddenly, startling Jean and Connie. 

"What? What about Mikasa—" 

"She's gone," he says, around the lump in his throat. "But there are Russians coming, and we have to go." 

They understand now. He sees the hope die in their faces as they pull the reins of their horses and start to move again. 

"Which way are we going?" Jean asks, voice low with grief disguised as action. 

"The bridge is up ahead," Armin recites, remembering the maps they poured over before the mission. "They know that we're going to want to cross it to get out of the city—we need to find a way around before they come looking for us." 

"Roger." Jean's a good man for acting, and he whips his horse's reins, turning to face the group. "The Russians are heading straight for us. We have to go now." 

They're good soldiers, and so they clamp down on the instinct to ask the burning question— _Are we just going to leave her out there?_ —because the burning answer is immediately apparent. They push their horses faster and move in tight formation along the river, putting distance between enemies and death. The guilt gets heavier every time a hoof strikes pavement.

* * *

It occurs to her that she's quite naked, aside from her underwear, and it occurs to her that Annie Leonhardt certainly saw her almost-naked, and that she shouldn't be bothered because this certainly isn't the first time, but it bothers her nonetheless.

She doesn't see her clothes in the vicinity, which isn't too concerning, because she doubts she has the strength to get out of bed anyway. Just turning her head to survey the room is a challenge, and she groans, long and drawn out, when she finally settles down again. 

_Everyone must think I'm dead._ Her thoughts turn to her friends soon enough, who hopefully figured out why she shot that damned flare. She trusts that Armin understood. He's smart, and strong enough to move forward even in heavy grief; grief, because they must assume she's well and wholly dead. She's not far off. 

The house creaks around her, just loud enough to be heard over the crackling fire. But she does not hear footsteps, and there are no voices. The only window is boarded up. The door is shut tight. She feels more trapped than she has in a long, long time. 

The chill brought on by her fall into the river hasn't lessened, and her teeth click together of their own volition, even when she scoots as close to the fire as she can and hugs the comforter to herself like a shield. It's the kind of cold that's glued itself to her bone marrow, that won't be dispelled with a little heat. She needs rest, her body more so than her mind, and she can't picture herself walking out of here anytime soon. 

This fact is more than a little disconcerting, especially when she hears what sounds like footsteps on a staircase, and then the rattle of the doorknob turning. 

"Oh, good," Annie says, but her expression and tone don't indicate the level of relief that her words do. "You're awake."

* * *

In those old war movies, the soldiers would always heroically declare that they couldn't leave any men behind, that anyone who was almost guaranteed dead was worth going back for. So they would go back. And against all odds, and all enemies, they would somehow rescue their doomed comrade, and return home unscathed. 

Any _real_ soldier can tell you that it's bullshit. 

You can't always go back. Hesitate for half a second and you might end up dead, too. Soldiers know this. They do it all the time. 

That's what Armin reminds himself of as they run, moving parallel to the river under the cover of sweet darkness. He couldn't save Mikasa, none of them could. He accepts that. But that doesn't mean it's easy to let go.

He looks over at the wagon, catching sight of Eren's sleeping face under the moonlight. Well. _Unconscious_ would be a better word. Once Eren figured out what was happening, he almost threw himself from the wagon and charged in that direction; no amount of protest kept him from thrashing against their hands, and it was Levi who eventually turned his rifle over in his hands and struck Eren over the head with it. 

They called Eren brash after he fell unconscious. Too wild, unthinking. But Armin envies him. He wishes that he could have a fraction of Eren's strength and bravery; he wishes that, when they realized Mikasa was being ambushed by Russians, he could have thrown caution to the wind and charged after her. 

He's not that kind of boy. 

Eventually, they find a smaller bridge over the Potomac that seems safe to cross. They send Jean and Connie on foot to scout the way, and when they confirm that all is clear, the party moves on, frequently casting out scouts ahead of them to ensure safe travel. It's not long before they hit a state road leading out of Washington and, simultaneously, they begin to let their guards down.

* * *

"G-get away f-from m-me," Mikasa says. Admittedly, the way her teeth are chattering really takes any bite out of her words.

"You'd be at the bottom of a river if it wasn't for me, so I suggest you be a little nicer," Annie replies, unfazed. "Shut up and save your strength. You almost died." 

_Why do you care?_ Mikasa wants to fight more, but she really doesn't have the energy to speak, let alone raise a fist. She falls quiet and glares instead, inspecting Annie's face as she bends to poke the fire. The bruises Mikasa left her with are fading now. 

Annie throws her a bored sideways glance. "You can stop trying to intimidate me with your eyes. In case you haven't noticed, you're completely vulnerable."

Sadly, it's the truth. Mikasa knows that Annie's not going to hurt her, of course. But that doesn't mean _she_ doesn't want to hurt Annie. 

"Jesus, are you still shivering?" 

She is, but she doesn't care for Annie to know that. Unfortunately, she finds that sheer force of will isn't enough to get the tremors rocking through her to stop, and she watches with a deep scowl as Annie comes around to the side of the bed and presses her hand to Mikasa's forehead.

"It's a wonder you didn't catch hypothermia," she mutters, moving her fingers to the junction of neck and jaw. "Weak pulse, too. You're a mess." 

"F-f- _fuck, off_ ," she stammers, jerking her head away. 

"Trust me, I've thought about it." 

_Then why haven't you?_

* * *

In the middle of a wide, cracked, empty interstate, so deserted that it allows them to see for miles, they stop. 

The fear of being chased is far removed, and they relax some. They let the horses graze on the knee-high grass along the side of the road and then ration out the minimal food they have, giving the most they can to the weak officers. As they're finishing up, Armin hears General Smith call him from where he sits against the wagon's back wheel, alone. 

"Arlert." 

"Sir?" 

"What's your next course of action?" 

Coming from the _general_ , the question makes Armin's pulse jump a little faster. He clears his throat. "My plans only covered rescuing you and escaping the city, sir."

"Damn fine plans, too," Smith compliments. "But we can't wander out here forever. Any suggestions?" 

"Well, it's a bit complicated," he hedges, mouth turning down at the corners. "Specialist Carolina reports that the base was taken over by civilians in our absence, sir." 

Smith shuts his eyes. "Sons of bitches. How bad is it?" 

"Specialist Carolina assumed the worst, sir. She saw no sign of allied survivors, and she barely escaped the property with her life."

Smith swears again. "So we risk our lives to take the base back, or we risk our lives finding somewhere else to stay." 

"That's the problem, yes, sir." 

"Well?" Smith turns his bright blue eyes on Armin's similar ones. "What do you suggest, Arlert?" 

"Sir, we have very few soldiers with us, and half of them are currently out of commission. Our chances of retaking the base are slim. We should focus on long-term survival—I think we need to find the President." 

A beat of silence. "The President?"

"Yes, sir." Armin swallows. "I believe he's still alive. The Russians clearly don't have him, and since D.C. was deserted, I think he escaped somehow, most likely with a number of personal guards. If we find out where the President is, we might find safety for our group as well." 

"Arlert, I appreciate your train of thinking," Smith hedges. "But that kind of plan takes time and energy. We have no idea where Mr. President is, let alone if he's alive or not, and trying to find him could either get us all killed or put us right back in the Russians' hands. I see why you want to find him, but we have to be more conscientious of the men and women around us. We barely have the supplies to last us a few more days on the road. We need to focus on keeping these people alive." 

Armin hides his disappointment expertly, nodding sharply at the general's words. "In that case, I suggest we analyze the situation in New York. I took a radio from the prison, and Specialist Bodt is checking the airwaves as we speak for signs of any survivors back home—" 

Before he can quite finish his sentence, a surprised shout from Marco cuts him off. Armin spins in place and sees Marco jump to his feet with the handheld radio in his palm, waving frantically for everyone to gather around him. _"I've got something!"_

Armin helps the general up and lets him lean on his shoulder as they go over to Marco, who's standing on the side of the road with his eyes wider than dinner plates. "Listen!"

_". . . is Second Lieutenant Rico Brzenska on military channel 94.7, requesting contact. I have a number of U.S. soldiers with me. We are surviving in an undisclosed, hostile territory, but we can't keep this up forever. If any military personnel are hearing this, please respond immediately. Again, this is Second Lieutenant Rico Brzenska . . ."_

Marco offers the radio to General Smith, who takes it in his one remaining hand and fiddles with the dials. "Lieutenant Brzenska, we read you." 

_"General—General Smith?!"_

"Roger." 

They hear other voices full of shock and awe on the other line, but the lieutenant shushes them. _"Sir, we were sure that everyone on the D.C. expedition was dead."_

"Most are," he says gruffly. "But we need to move forward now. What's the status on the base? I was just told it was captured." 

_"Unfortunately, that's the case. The civilians came in huge numbers. They outnumbered us five to one. We fought for a time, but the casualties were too severe. I ordered the survivors to abandon the base."_

"Good call. How many bodies do you have with you?" 

_"About 135 on my last count."_

Connie whistles appreciatively, and Smith nods. "Well done, Brzenska. Where are you in the city?" 

_"We've taken up residence in a factory by the Hudson. Not much civilian or Russian activity out here, and if we're quiet, the Titans walk right past us."_

"Weapons? Supplies?" 

_"We don't have enough rifles to go around, and even less ammunition. Most of our food comes from fishing in the river nowadays. We've tried contacting the White House a few times, requesting aid, but we've been ignored so far."_

Smith frowns. "You're not being ignored. The White House has fallen." 

_"Son of a bitch."_

"I know. We'll discuss the details later," he says. "Give me your exact coordinates. We'll head your way as soon as we can." 

She reads them off to him twice, and then bids him a temporary farewell. 

It's almost too good to be true. 

_There's a home waiting for us. Allies. Food. Supplies._

The others look like weights have been lifted from their shoulders, but Armin's spirits don't rise so swiftly. In light of recent events, he can't help but feel just a tad pessimistic—like good fortune is far out of their reach, and he should brace himself for the worst now.

* * *

"You're going to shatter your teeth if you keep this up," Annie scoffs, referring to the way Mikasa's teeth can't stop chattering. 

Another reprise of _fuck off_ is in order here, but Mikasa can't summon the energy to say it. She senses herself shutting down by the minute. It feels like her blood is moving just a tad slower with every rotation through her body, which, even in her exhausted state, she knows can't be very good. The most she can do is fight to keep her eyes open, tracking Annie's minimal movements around the room like a hawk.

She remembers the course on field medicine that she aced when she was fifteen, back in the academy. Most of the class was dedicated to treating open wounds and picking shrapnel out of a bleed, but there were a few sections on injuries caused by the elements—particularly, frostbite and hypothermia. She struggles to recall the details. A low heart rate is _definitely_ a sign of hypothermia, she thinks. Her heart thuds dully in her chest as if to back the point up. 

She has the other symptoms—shivering, difficulty speaking, drowsiness, some confusion. Confusion, because she can't seem to recall _treatment_ for hypothermia, after wet clothing has been removed (check) and dry blankets are applied (check). The answer evades her. 

"Oh, for Christ's sake." 

"Wh-what are y-you doing?" Mikasa demands weakly. Her eyes widen exponentially when Annie tugs off her uniform shirt and then shucks the undershirt that appears beneath it. 

"You're not getting warmer," she says bluntly, working at the zipper of her pants. "Haven't you ever heard of sharing body heat? Americans are so helpless." 

She doesn't have the strength to protest this unfailing logic—come to think of it, that's _exactly_ what she forgot—but she still goes stiff when Annie joins her on the hard mattress, ignoring her discomfort and sad attempt to shift away. "Don't be such a fucking baby. You're going to freeze to death otherwise."

 _I hate you,_ she thinks. But it's hard to keep up something as trivial as hate when their skin makes contact and she realizes just how cold she is, and just how warm Annie is. She always thought that Annie was the cold-blooded type, but in this instance, she's quite the opposite. Still, _fuck_ her traitorous body for pressing closer to that warmth, even when her muddled brain reminds her that this girl _shot her brother_ , that she's an enemy of the state, that Mikasa (wants to) abhor her with all of her being. 

All of that is hard to stand by. Warm is warm.

* * *

They set course for New York with renewed enthusiasm.

Eren insists that he's feeling better, and against Armin's wishes, he leaves his spot in the wagon in favor of his own horse. His face is twisted with discomfort as they ride, a cold sweat springing up on his brow before long. But he persists, and Armin has no choice but to let him, riding close to him and keeping a close eye on his condition.

"He's not taking this well," Jean says, drawing his horse closer to Armin's. 

"Who, Eren?" Armin follows Jean's gaze to the boy in question, who sits rigid in his saddle. "He's. . . . Okay, he's not doing well." 

Jean turns his scowl forward. "Who can blame him? His sister just kicked it—" 

_"Jean."_

"I know, I know. Do you want me to talk to him or something?" 

"It won't help," Armin sighs. "I'll—I'll take care of it." 

"Don't let him fly off the handle, Arlert," Jean warns, and he pulls ahead.

When they rest some twenty miles later, outside of an abandoned gas station, Armin ventures to broach the subject with Eren, who's acting completely out of character. His usual energy is reserved, simmering somewhere out of sight, and he doesn't speak as he lets his horse graze on the overgrown grass behind the station. 

"Eren?" 

Eren doesn't look up, eyes fixed on the ground. Armin closes the distance and snaps his fingers a few times. "How are you feeling?" 

He mumbles something.

"What was that?" 

Eren's head snaps up unexpectedly, and Armin takes a step back when he speaks. "She's dead."

It should be a question, but unfortunately, it isn't. "I . . . I think so." 

Eren fists one hand in Armin's shirt, his eyes widening, reminding Armin of the way he usually acts. "Is this my fault? Did we do this?"

The immediate answer, the comforting answer, is _no_. But Armin considers it. And a small, ugly part of his mind thinks that it is their fault—no, it's _his_ fault. He orchestrated this mission. He suggested that Mikasa play the role of scout. He failed to anticipate the Russians' plan to cut them off at the Potomac. 

The more he thinks on it, the more he realizes how guilty he really is. 

"See?" Eren says, watching the edges of Armin's calm wither. "We did this. We did this to her! _It's our fucking fault!_ " 

_No it's not_ , he wants to say, but the tears threatening the backs of his eyelids are stopping up his throat. _It can't be our fault._

"It wasn't supposed to be this way," Eren gasps, pushing Armin away. He's talking in hysterics now. "It was supposed to be the three of us against everything, Armin. We were all supposed to grow old and get sick of each other—if _any_ of us was going to fucking die like this, it shouldn't have been her—"

"Eren, stop." 

"Why didn't I do something?" He looks at the sky now, as if an answer will twirl down from the gloomy clouds. "If I hadn't let myself get shot like a dumbass, if I wasn't so weak, I could have gone after her. I could have saved her, Armin—" 

"You couldn't have." He steps in Eren's way and forces eye contact. "None of us could have done anything, Eren."

"We don't know that. If I'd been fully healed—" 

Armin feels the secret bubbling like a volcano, begging to spill out. "She just wanted you to be safe. That's all she ever wanted." 

"At what cost?" Eren brings his hands to his head, eyes wild. "I never wanted her to die for me, Armin. I would rather have died for her—" 

"You almost did, so give it a rest." 

Oh, no.

Eren stops. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing." Armin reels for a subject change—Eren isn't ready to know about the details of his injuries, the Russian soldier. 

"Armin, tell me."

"It's not important right now," he insists, edging back. 

Eren's hands fist at his sides. "What are you hiding?" 

_Ask her,_ Armin thinks, before he realizes that is no longer an option.

* * *

Wriggling out of Annie's grip is wholly impossible, and after a while struggling against her, Mikasa admits that she doesn't want to escape, anyway.

It's a slow process, but her core temperature steadily rises, like mercury in a thermometer. A measure of clarity return to her addled brain as she relaxes into Annie's offered warmth, and it points out to her that she was stupid to ever want to refuse this life-saving action. She may (be trying to) hate Annie with everything she has, but she also wants to live, and this is clearly the only way to do that. 

So she'll wait. And then she'll leave. 

_You should kill her before you go,_ a dutiful part of her whispers. _End her now._

But another part that won't be named or acknowledged, the part that she wants to thrust from herself for good, jumps on the opportunity to argue. _She's saving your life. The least you can do is let her live._

It's solid reasoning, she convinces herself, and she resolves to merely flee her imprisonment without spilling blood (as if she could ever really kill Annie Leonhardt regardless). 

She was full of shit the last time she threatened Annie's life, and she was full of shit every time before. 

It's a vicious cycle. 

"You're welcome." Abruptly, Annie untangles herself from Mikasa and scoots off the bed. She stretches her arms over and behind her head, and the way her muscles move under the skin of her back is hypnotizing. 

Mikasa doesn't reply, not trusting any words that might come to her lips. She turns on her side and hugs herself tightly. Annie dresses without speaking for a while, opening her mouth again when she ties her boots. 

"No 'thank you'? How petty." She straightens up and goes to the door, leaning her head out into the hallway and listening. Her hand rests on the butt of the handgun hanging at her belt. The radio on her other hip flares suddenly, an agitated Russian voice crackling from the speaker, and she leaves in a hurry.

* * *

Eren drags the truth out of him, and when Armin finishes the story, Eren doesn't speak for a long time. 

When he does, it's quiet. "She let that Russian shoot me?" 

"No!" Armin cries, holding his hands out. "No, she didn't let that happen. I swear. She's the only reason you're alive." 

"She's also the reason I almost died," Eren growls. "But it's not Mikasa's fault. It's that bitch—the Russian bitch. She got away with this? Mikasa let her go?" 

Armin doesn't like the way Eren's eyes light up, maliciously, but he answers honestly. "She did." 

"Good." Eren grabs his horse's reins, startling the animal with its mouth half-full of grass. 

"Good? Why is that—?" 

"Because we can kill her now," he snarls, tugging his horse in the direction of the others. "We're taking revenge. For me, and for my sister." 

"Eren, don't be rash." 

"Rash?" He whirls on Armin, eyes huge. "She almost killed me and she made Mikasa do—things that she normally _wouldn't_ do, things that I know she wouldn't do without that crazy bitch wrapping her around her finger, and she's fucking _dead_ because of it—" 

Armin catches his elbow, stopping him from storming off, and fights to exude calmness. "I get that. But do you think Mikasa would want this? For you to go charging off on a quest for vengeance?" 

This gives him pause. "I—I don't know what she would want, and she's not here to tell me. Don't you get that? I fucked up, Armin. I fucked up bad, and this is the only way I know to fix it."

* * *

She's still freezing, and disoriented, but she has enough strength, enough will to live. She gets to her feet. 

The floor feels like ice; hell, the air feels like ice. But Mikasa stumbles to the door nonetheless. The house is creaking as it mourns Annie's departure to God knows where. When the Russian will return is another mystery, so Mikasa works quickly, not eager for Annie to come back and find her staggering around in her underwear. 

In the hallway, she combs the neighboring rooms. The first two are empty; in the third, she's grateful to find her clothes, torn and ragged and a little stiff from her fall in the river, but ultimately better than being half-naked in unfamiliar territory. She dresses rapidly, understanding the pleasure of having a shirt on her back and boots on her feet like never before. Her weapons are nowhere to be found, which she expected, but she doesn't allow her lack of arms to deter her. 

It's in a fourth room that she strikes gold. A few Russian uniforms are scattered about; this must be where Annie's slept for however long they've been here. Mikasa pokes around the room until she comes across a knife in its scabbard. She attaches it to her hip with a relieved sigh, remembering the innate satisfaction of having a weapon. 

No guns, but the knife will suit her for now. She finds nothing else on this floor and heads downstairs carefully, working to keep her steps quiet, the knife unsheathed in her right hand. She hears nothing to signal that Annie or anyone else is here. Keeping her guard up, she passes through a decrepit living room with nothing of use to her, and into a dilapidated kitchen unit. This leads her to acknowledge how incredibly hungry she is, and in a moment of weakness, she considers searching for food. 

The thought leaves her head when the sound of a door opening reaches her. She flattens herself against the wall to the immediate side of the kitchen door, the knife digging into her palm, and she listens. Out in the living room, soft footsteps cross the floor and reach the stairs. She counts in her head, matching the number of footfalls to the number of steps in the staircase. The numbers check out. The footsteps move upstairs. 

Mikasa darts out of the kitchen. It'll only be a few precious moments before Annie realizes that she's not where she left her, and it's time to prepare for a confrontation. She crouches in the shadow of the staircase, ears tuned to the sound of the footsteps overhead faltering, stopping, and then starting again in earnest.

In the hallway, onto the landing, down the stairs. Mikasa waits. Annie steps into the living room with her handgun drawn, her back to her escaped captive, and Mikasa takes her chance. 

It's an oddly comforting motion, the attack—covering Annie's mouth with one hand, pressing the blade to her throat with the other, and digging her knee into Annie's back for insurance. This part is easy.

There's an ominous clatter as Annie drops her weapon, uncurling each finger one at a time in slow surrender.

"I knew I shouldn't have left you alone," she says, when Mikasa moves her hand from her mouth. 

"You shouldn't have," Mikasa agrees. She kicks the gun out of reach and spins them, slamming Annie's back against the rickety stairs and readjusting her hold on her. 

Annie sneers at her, apparently unfazed by the knife threatening to bisect her jugular. "Oh, what? You're going to kill me now?" 

She wants to say _yes_. _Yes, I'm going to split your throat open from ear to ear and wait until you've bled out, and it's still not going to be enough to make up for what you've done to my brother._

But that would be a bold lie. 

They know how this works by now. There are no illusions. They threaten and cut and bite but the fatal strike, the ending blow—it's never going to come from _either_ of them, and it's high time they stop pretending otherwise. 

Mikasa lets Annie go and steps back. The knife falls harmlessly to her side. 

"Yeah." Annie fixes the disheveled collar of her uniform, never breaking eye contact. "That's what I thought."


End file.
